How do I access folders that contain space in Terminal. (ie. My Folder)

How do I access folders that contain space in Terminal. (ie. My Folder)

"cd My Folder" doesn't work.

You access the directory based on its path.

If you have a directory called "Music" in your home directory, you get there by typing "cd Music" if you're already in your home directory (which is where Terminal puts you by default)

You can also use "cd ~/Music" if you're somewhere other than your home directory.

If you're trying to do all this as the root user, you need to use the absolute path, e.g "cd /Users/username/Music"

If your issue is that you're trying to access a directory that has a space in its name, you tell the UNIX shell to avoid interpreting the space by using a backslash before the offending character. In your example, you would type "cd My\ Folder" (note the backslash before the space before the word "Folder".

i have used:

cd "My Folder"

and it worked. You can give that a try.

The initial directory is your home directory so unless the folder is in their you need to specify the path more

cd /Desktop/My Folder

Always remember that the tab key is your friend and will autocomplete for you. e.g. typing "cd My" + hitting tab will complete the line for you as "cd My\ Folder/".

haze said:

"cd My\ Folder/".

Click to expand...

Oh that's it. "cd My\ Folder" works. Myabe it the escape sequence. got it. Thanks.

Don't forget the easy way...
cd<space>+drag the folder icon from the Finder into the Terminal window.

Much better than trying to type "cd ~/folder/subfolder/subsubfolder/subsubsubfolder/sub...." without making a typo.