more — Page through text

Linux / Basic Linux commands / more.html

A basic pager that shows long text one screen at a time.

Basic Information

What is this command?

more displays input one screen at a time. Space advances a page, Enter advances a line and q quits.

It has fewer features than less but ships almost everywhere. It remains useful inside pipelines to pause long output.

What problems does it solve?

• Reading long command output screen by screen
• Needing a pager on a minimal system
• Pausing script output for inspection
• Environments where less is unavailable

Key features

Page navigation

Space and Enter move forward.

• When to use: Reading output at your own pace
• What you get: You can review long results without losing them.
• Limitations: Backward navigation is limited.

Pipeline use

Append it to a command to page its output.

• When to use: When logs or listings overflow the screen
• What you get: Saves terminal scrollback.
• Limitations: Closing the pipe may terminate the upstream command.

Searching

The / command searches forward for a pattern.

• When to use: Finding a string in long output
• What you get: Provides basic search.
• Limitations: Regex support is limited.

Installation and usage

Check whether it is installed

more --version

sudo apt install util-linux # Debian/Ubuntu sudo dnf install util-linux # Fedora

Real-world examples

View a file

View a file page by page.

more /etc/services

Page long output

Pipe long output into the pager.

ls -l /usr/bin | more

Search while viewing

Use slash to find a string.

more /var/log/syslog
/error