How to move a given number of random files on Unix/Linux OS

Use a combination of shuf and xargs (it’s a good idea to look at their documentation with man):

shuf -n 10 -e * | xargs -i mv {} path-to-new-folder

The command above selects 10 random files of the current folder (the * part) and then move them to the new folder.

Update

Although longer, one might find this version even simpler to understand:

ls | shuf -n 10 | xargs -i mv {} path-to-new-folder

shuf just generates a random permutation of the standard input, limiting the results to 10 (like using head, but probably faster).

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