cd: Moving In

cd (change directory) moves you from your current location into a different directory. It's the equivalent of double-clicking a folder in a graphical file manager.

Basic usage

cd documents

After running this, pwd would output /home/user/documents. You are now inside documents.

Absolute vs relative paths

Relative path — relative to where you currently are:

cd documents          # move into 'documents' inside current dir
cd documents/projects # move two levels in one step

Absolute path — always starts from the root /:

cd /home/user/documents   # works from anywhere
cd /                       # go to the filesystem root

What happens if you get it wrong

cd nonexistent

Output:

cd: nonexistent: No such file or directory

The terminal tells you immediately. Nothing bad happens — you stay where you were.

After every cd, run ls

Building the habit of cd then ls is how you orient yourself quickly in an unfamiliar directory.

Practice

Navigate into the documents directory using cd.