How to force cp to overwrite without confirmation

This is probably caused by cp being already aliased to something like cp -i. Calling cp directly should work:

/bin/cp -rf /zzz/zzz/ /xxx/xxx

Another way to get around this is to use the yes command:

yes | cp -rf /zzz/zzz/ /xxx/xxx

5 years ago

You probably have an alias somewhere, mapping cp to cp -i; because with the default settings, cp won't ask to overwrite. Check your .bashrc, your .profile etc.

See cp manpage: Only when -i parameter is specified will cp actually prompt before overwriting.

You can check this via the alias command:

$ alias

alias cp='cp -i'

alias diff='diff -u'

....

To undefine the alias, use:

$ unalias cp

5 years ago