Copy directory hierarchies, create and extract archives. Ditto can preserve ownership / permissions, resource forks and file / folder metadata. Ditto will automatically create the destination folder if it doesn’t yet exist, if the destination does exist and contains files, then ditto will merge them.
Syntax
ditto [options] Source_file Destination_file
ditto [options] Source Destination_folder
ditto -x [options] Source_Archive Destination_folder
ditto -c [options] Source Destination_archive
ditto -h | --help
Where Source = a file, folder or archive.
Options
-h Print full usage.
-X When copying one or more source directories, do not descend into directories that
have a different device ID.
-c Create an archive at the destination path. The default format is CPIO, unless
-k is given. CPIO archives should be stored in files with names ending in .cpio.
Compressed CPIO archives should be stored in files with names ending in .cpgz.
-z Create compressed CPIO archives, using gzip(1) compression.
-j Create compressed CPIO archives, using bzip2(1) compression.
-v Print a line of output to stderr for each source directory copied.
-V Print a line of output to stderr for every file, symbolic link, and device copied.
-x Extract the archives given as source arguments. The format is assumed to be CPIO,
unless -k is given. Compressed CPIO is automatically handled.
-k Create or extract from a PKZip archive instead of the default CPIO.
PKZip archives should be stored in filenames ending in .zip.
--keepParent When creating an archive, embed the parent directory name src in dst_archive.
--arch arch Thin Universal binaries to the specified architecture.
If multiple --arch options are specified then the resulting destination file
will contain each of the specified architectures (if they are present in the
source file). arch should be specified as "i386", "x86_64", etc.
--bom bom Copy only files, links, devices, and directories that are present in the
specified BOM.
--rsrc Preserve resource forks and HFS meta-data. ditto will store this data in
Carbon-compatible ._ AppleDouble files on filesystems that do not natively
support resource forks. As of Mac OS X 10.4, --rsrc is default behavior.
--norsrc Do not preserve resource forks and HFS meta-data.
If both --norsrc and --rsrc are passed, whichever is passed last will take
precedence. Both options override DITTONORSRC.
Unless explicitly specified, --norsrc also implies --noextattr and --noacl
to match the behavior of Mac OS X 10.4.
--extattr Preserve extended attributes (requires --rsrc).
As of Mac OS X 10.5, --extattr is the default.
--noextattr Do not preserve extended attributes (requires --norsrc).
--qtn Preserve quarantine information. As of Mac OS X 10.5, --qtn is the default.
--noqtn Do not preserve quarantine information.
--acl Preserve Access Control Lists (ACLs). As of Mac OS X 10.5, --acl is the default.
--noacl Do not preserve ACLs.
--nocache Do not perform copies using the Mac OS X Unified Buffer Cache.
Files read and written will not be cached, although if the file is
already present in the cache, the cached information will be used.
--hfsCompression
When copying files or extracting content from an archive, if the destination is
an HFS+ volume that supports compression, all the content will be compressed if
appropriate. This is only supported on Mac OS X 10.6 or later, and is only
intended to be used in installation and backup scenarios that involve system files.
Since files using HFS+ compression are not readable on versions of Mac OS X earlier
than 10.6, this flag should not be used when dealing with non-system files or other
user-generated content that will be used on a version of Mac OS X earlier than 10.6.
--nohfsCompression
Do not compress files with HFS+ compression when copying or extracting content
from an archive unless the content is already compressed with HFS+ compression.
This flag is only supported on Mac OS X 10.6 or later. --nohfsCompression is the default.
--preserveHFSCompression
When copying files to an HFS+ volume that supports compression, ditto will preserve
the compression of any source files that were using HFS+ compression.
This flag is only supported on Mac OS X 10.6 or later. --preserveHFSCompression is the default.
--nopreserveHFSCompression
Do not preserve HFS+ compression when copying files that are already compressed
with HFS+ compression. This is only supported on Mac OS X 10.6 or later.
--sequesterRsrc
When creating a PKZip archive, preserve resource forks and HFS meta-data in the
subdirectory __MACOSX. PKZip extraction will automatically find these resources.
--zlibCompressionLevel num
Sets the compression level to use when creating a PKZip archive. The compression
level can be set from 0 to 9, where 0 represents no compression, and 9 represents
optimal (slowest) compression.
By default, ditto will use the default compression level as defined by zlib.
--password When extracting a password-encrypted ZIP archive, you must specify --password to
allow ditto to prompt for a password to use to extract the contents of the file.
If this option is not provided, and a password-encrypted file is encountered,
ditto will emit an error message.
Unlike cp -R, if the destination folder already exists, the existing contents will be merged with the contents of the folder being copied.
Copy a folder quotes are needed because of the space in the folder name. Note that this will merge the files into the destination:
ditto "~/Desktop/work files" "/Volumes/work backup"
To also preserve the Mac resource forks, type and creator codes use (only required prior to 10.4):
ditto -rsrc "~/Desktop/work files" "/Volumes/work backup"
Don’t copy metadata and resource forks:
ditto -V --norsrc "~/Desktop/work files" "/Volumes/work backup"
“The Borgesian meta-library contains a copy of every book ever written, but my dream-artifact is already, and always, every book ever written, on demand” - William Gibson
cp - Copy files.
dd - Data Duplicator - convert and copy a file.
install - Copy files and set attributes.
mv - Move Files.
tar - store or extract files to an archive (allows symbolic
links to be copied as links.)