Add a Real-Time Progress Bar to Linux cp and mv Commands with advcpmv

This article explains how to use the open‑source advcpmv project on GitHub to add a progress bar to the Linux cp and mv commands.

Because cp and mv belong to the GNU coreutils package, the solution is to patch and recompile coreutils.

# Avoid using the root user when possible
$ pwd
/home/tinychen

# Download coreutils
$ wget http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/coreutils/coreutils-8.32.tar.xz
$ tar -xJf coreutils-8.32.tar.xz
$ cd coreutils-8.32/

# Download the advcpmv patch from GitHub
$ wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/jarun/advcpmv/master/advcpmv-0.8-8.32.patch

# Apply the patch
$ patch -p1 -i advcpmv-0.8-8.32.patch
patching file src/copy.c
patching file src/copy.h
patching file src/cp.c
patching file src/mv.c

# Configure, build and install
$ ./configure
$ make
$ sudo cp src/cp /usr/local/bin/cp
$ sudo cp src/mv /usr/local/bin/mv

After installing the patched binaries, add convenient aliases to .bashrc so the progress bar appears automatically:

$ alias cp='cp -ig'
$ alias mv='mv -ig'

Running a large copy now shows overall progress, per‑file progress, and average speed, e.g.:

$ cp -r /samba/Elements02/kvm/* /kvm/
0 files copied so far... 1.6 GiB / 67.2 GiB
[===>                     ] 2.4 %
Copying at 178.4 MiB/s (about 0h 6m 45s remaining)
/samba/Elements02/kvm/iso/CentOS-6.10-x86_64-bin-DVD1.iso 1.6 GiB / 3.7 GiB
[========================================================================>] 43.4 %