Copy the specified files (dired-do-copy). The argument new is the directory to copy into, or (if copying a single file) the new name. This is like the shell command cp.

The option dired-create-destination-dirs controls whether Dired should create non-existent directories in the destination while copying/renaming files. The default value nil means Dired never creates such missing directories; the value always, means Dired automatically creates them; the value ask means Dired asks you for confirmation before creating them.

If the option dired-create-destination-dirs-on-trailing-dirsep is non-nil in addition to dired-create-destination-dirs, a trailing directory separator at the destination directory is treated specially. In that case, when copying to ‘test/’ and no directory ‘test’ exists already, it will be created and the specified source files or directories are copied into the newly created directory.

If dired-copy-preserve-time is non-nil, then copying with this command preserves the modification time of the old file in the copy, like ‘cp -p’.

The variable dired-recursive-copies controls whether to copy directories recursively (like ‘cp -r’). The default is top, which means to ask before recursively copying a directory.

The variable dired-copy-dereference controls whether to copy symbolic links as links or after dereferencing (like ‘cp -L’). The default is nil, which means that the symbolic links are copied by creating new ones.

The dired-keep-marker-copy user option controls how this command handles file marking. The default is to mark all new copies of files with a ‘C’ mark.

Delete the specified files (dired-do-delete). This is like the shell command rm.

Like the other commands in this section, this command operates on the marked files, or the next n files. By contrast, x (dired-do-flagged-delete) deletes all flagged files.

“Open” the specified files using an external program (dired-do-open). The program is selected according to the system conventions, as determined by the variable shell-command-guess-open.

Rename the specified files (dired-do-rename). If you rename a single file, the argument new is the new name of the file. If you rename several files, the argument new is the directory into which to move the files (this is like the shell command mv).

The option dired-create-destination-dirs controls whether Dired should create non-existent directories in new.

The option dired-create-destination-dirs-on-trailing-dirsep, when set in addition to dired-create-destination-dirs, controls whether a trailing directory separator at the destination is treated specially. In that case, when renaming a directory ‘old’ to ‘new/’ and no directory ‘new’ exists already, it will be created and ‘old’ is moved into the newly created directory. Otherwise, ‘old’ is renamed to ‘new’.

Dired automatically changes the visited file name of buffers associated with renamed files so that they refer to the new names.

If the value of the variable dired-vc-rename-file is non-nil, files are renamed using the commands of the underlying VCS, via vc-rename-file (see Deleting and Renaming Version-Controlled Files).

Make hard links to the specified files (dired-do-hardlink). This is like the shell command ln. The argument new is the directory to make the links in, or (if making just one link) the name to give the link.

Make symbolic links to the specified files (dired-do-symlink). This is like ‘ln -s’. The argument new is the directory to make the links in, or (if making just one link) the name to give the link.

Make relative symbolic links to the specified files (dired-do-relsymlink). The argument new is the directory to make the links in, or (if making just one link) the name to give the link. This is like dired-do-symlink but creates relative symbolic links. For example:

It does not create absolute ones like:

    foo -> /path/that/may/change/any/day/bar/foo

Change the mode (also called permission bits) of the specified files (dired-do-chmod). modespec can be in octal or symbolic notation, like arguments handled by the chmod program. This command does not follow symbolic links, so it reports an error if you try to change the mode of a symbolic link on a platform where such modes are immutable.

Change the group of the specified files to newgroup (dired-do-chgrp).

Change the owner of the specified files to newowner (dired-do-chown). (On most systems, only the superuser can do this.)

The variable dired-chown-program specifies the name of the program to use to do the work. (This variable is necessary because different systems put chown in different places).

Touch the specified files (dired-do-touch). This means updating their modification times to timestamp, which defaults to the present time. This is like the shell command touch.

Print the specified files (dired-do-print). You must specify the command to print them with, but the minibuffer starts out with a suitable guess made using the variables lpr-command and lpr-switches (the same variables that lpr-buffer uses; see Printing Hard Copies).

Compress the specified files (dired-do-compress). If the file appears to be a compressed file already, uncompress it instead. Each marked file is compressed into its own archive; this uses the gzip program if it is available, otherwise it uses compress.

On a directory name, this command produces a compressed archive depending on the dired-compress-directory-default-suffix user option. The default is a .tar.gz archive containing all of the directory’s files, by running the tar command with output piped to gzip. To allow decompression of compressed directories, typing Z on a .tar.gz or .tgz archive file unpacks all the files in the archive into a directory whose name is the archive name with the extension removed.

Compress the specified files (dired-do-compress-to) into a single archive anywhere on the file system. The default archive is controlled by the dired-compress-directory-default-suffix user option. Also see dired-compress-files-alist.

Decrypt the specified files (epa-dired-do-decrypt). See Dired integration in EasyPG Assistant User’s Manual.

Verify digital signatures on the specified files (epa-dired-do-verify). See Dired integration in EasyPG Assistant User’s Manual.

Digitally sign the specified files (epa-dired-do-sign). See Dired integration in EasyPG Assistant User’s Manual.

Encrypt the specified files (epa-dired-do-encrypt). See Dired integration in EasyPG Assistant User’s Manual.

Load the specified Emacs Lisp files (dired-do-load). See Libraries of Lisp Code for Emacs.

Byte compile the specified Emacs Lisp files (dired-do-byte-compile). See Byte Compilation in The Emacs Lisp Reference Manual.

Run Info on this file (assumed to be a file in Info format).

Run man on this file (assumed to be a file in nroff format).

Search all the specified files for the regular expression regexp (dired-do-find-regexp).

This command is a variant of xref-find-references (see Searching and Replacing with Identifiers), it displays the *xref* buffer, where you can navigate between matches and display them as needed using the commands described in Commands Available in the *xref* Buffer.

If any of the marked files are directories, then this command searches all of the files in those directories, and any of their subdirectories, recursively, except files whose names match grep-find-ignored-files and subdirectories whose names match grep-find-ignored-directories.

Perform query-replace-regexp on each of the specified files, replacing matches for regexp with the string to (dired-do-find-regexp-and-replace).

This command is a variant of xref-query-replace-in-results. It presents an *xref* buffer that lists all the matches of regexp, and you can use the special commands in that buffer (see Commands Available in the *xref* Buffer). In particular, if you exit the query replace loop, you can use r in that buffer to replace more matches. See Searching and Replacing with Identifiers.

Like with dired-do-find-regexp, if any of the marked files are directories, this command performs replacements in all of the files in those directories, and in any of their subdirectories, recursively, except for files whose names match grep-find-ignored-files and subdirectories whose names match grep-find-ignored-directories.