Forgot correct syntax to mv millions of files around on the same partition I had a command line instruction to move a 100k’s of jpgs to the correct directory on the same disk/volume/partition and without using xargs. The quirk is that the jpgs have spaces and multiple periods or dots. For example: “wacky image.45 xyz.001 00.78.jpg”. The other quirk is that wacky pattern refers to a set, so there a several thousand of those jpgs with an additional set of numbers inserted before the final jpg extension: “wacky image.45 xyz.001 00.78.details_0_34748-836389.jpg. I’m not sure who made the design decision for this machine but it wasn’t me! Anyway I had something along the lines of: for f in ./“wacky image.45 xyz.name.s.00.78”*; do mv $f /path/to/destination/; done I’m not sure what I’m missing. Edit: Using MacOS terminal app, which behaves like BSD for the most part.

Arkadiusz Drabczyk got it right with "Put $f in double quotes: "$f"" up above.

Using this, I'm able to mv 1M+ files to different directory on the same disk/volume/partition. I edited the question, but I'll put it here too. I'm using MacOS 10.14 and the terminal app, which behaves like BSD for the most part. FOr better or worse, Apple no longer allows 32-bit applications on it's OS, so every CLI tool was compiled in 64-bit. Maybe this is what allows large argument lists?