The Star Wildcard

A wildcard is a special character that acts as a placeholder to match one or more characters in filenames. Wildcards let you work with multiple files at once without typing every name.

The star wildcard * matches any number of characters (including zero). It is the most powerful and commonly used wildcard.

For example, to list all files ending in .txt:

ls *.txt

This matches any filename that ends with .txt, no matter how long the name is.

More examples:

Match all files starting with photo:

ls photo*

Match all files containing report anywhere in the name:

ls *report*

Match all files of any name or extension:

ls *

You can use * with any command, not just ls. For example, copy all .jpg files into a folder:

cp *.jpg photos/

Or delete all .log files at once:

rm *.log

Tip: Always run ls with your wildcard pattern first before using it with rm or mv — this way you can see exactly which files will be affected before making any changes.