Linux: Move 1 million files into prefix-based created Folders

for i in *.*; do mkdir -p ${i:0:1}/${i:1:1}/${i:2:1}/; mv $i ${i:0:1}/${i:1:1}/${i:2:1}/; done;

The ${i:0:1}/${i:1:1}/${i:2:1} part could probably be a variable, or shorter or different, but the command above gets the job done. You'll probably face performance issues but if you really want to use it, narrow the *.* to fewer options (a*.*, b*.* or what fits you)

edit: added a $ before i for mv, as noted by Dan

You can generate the new file name using, e.g., sed:

$ echo "test.jpg" | sed -e 's/^\(\(.\)\(.\)\(.\).*\)$/\2\/\3\/\4\/\1/'t/e/s/test.jpg

So, you can do something like this (assuming all the directories are already created):

for f in *; do   mv -i "$f" "$(echo "$f" | sed -e 's/^\(\(.\)\(.\)\(.\).*\)$/\2\/\3\/\4\/\1/')"done

or, if you can't use the bash $( syntax:

for f in *; do   mv -i "$f" "`echo "$f" | sed -e 's/^\(\(.\)\(.\)\(.\).*\)$/\2\/\3\/\4\/\1/'`"done

However, considering the number of files, you may just want to use perl as that's a lot of sed and mv processes to spawn:

#!/usr/bin/perl -wuse strict;# warning: untestedopendir DIR, "." or die "opendir: $!";my @files = readdir(DIR); # can't change dir while reading: read in advanceclosedir DIR;foreach my $f (@files) {    (my $new_name = $f) =~ s!^((.)(.)(.).*)$!$2/$3/$4/$1/;    -e $new_name and die "$new_name already exists";    rename($f, $new_name);}

That perl is surely limited to same-filesystem only, though you can use File::Copy::move to get around that.

You can do it as a bash script:

#!/bin/bashbase=basemkdir -p $base/shortsfor n in *do    if [ ${#n} -lt 3 ]    then        mv $n $base/shorts    else        dir=$base/${n:0:1}/${n:1:1}/${n:2:1}        mkdir -p $dir        mv $n $dir    fidone

Needless to say, you might need to worry about spaces and the files with short names.