Learn Why ‘less’ is Faster Than ‘more’ Command for Effective File Navigation

More is a *nix command line used to display the contents of a file in a console. The basic usage of more command is to run the command against a file as shown below:

Read Also: Learn Difference Between ‘cat’ and ‘tac’ Commands with Examples

Learn Linux ‘more’ Command

# more /var/log/auth.log

View Contents of auth.log File

Apr 12 11:50:01 tecmint CRON[6932]: pam_unix(cron:session): session opened for user root by (uid=0)
Apr 12 11:50:01 tecmint CRON[6932]: pam_unix(cron:session): session closed for user root
Apr 12 11:55:01 tecmint CRON[7159]: pam_unix(cron:session): session opened for user root by (uid=0)
Apr 12 11:55:01 tecmint CRON[7160]: pam_unix(cron:session): session opened for user root by (uid=0)
Apr 12 11:55:01 tecmint CRON[7160]: pam_unix(cron:session): session closed for user root
Apr 12 11:55:02 tecmint CRON[7159]: pam_unix(cron:session): session closed for user root
Apr 12 12:00:01 tecmint CRON[7290]: pam_unix(cron:session): session opened for user root by (uid=0)
Apr 12 12:00:01 tecmint CRON[7290]: pam_unix(cron:session): session closed for user root
Apr 12 12:05:01 tecmint CRON[7435]: pam_unix(cron:session): session opened for user root by (uid=0)
Apr 12 12:05:01 tecmint CRON[7436]: pam_unix(cron:session): session opened for user root by (uid=0)
Apr 12 12:05:01 tecmint CRON[7436]: pam_unix(cron:session): session closed for user root
Apr 12 12:05:02 tecmint CRON[7435]: pam_unix(cron:session): session closed for user root
Apr 12 12:09:01 tecmint CRON[7542]: pam_unix(cron:session): session opened for user root by (uid=0)
Apr 12 12:09:01 tecmint CRON[7542]: pam_unix(cron:session): session closed for user root
Apr 12 12:10:01 tecmint CRON[7577]: pam_unix(cron:session): session opened for user root by (uid=0)
Apr 12 12:10:01 tecmint CRON[7577]: pam_unix(cron:session): session closed for user root
Apr 12 12:15:01 tecmint CRON[7699]: pam_unix(cron:session): session opened for user root by (uid=0)
Apr 12 12:15:01 tecmint CRON[7700]: pam_unix(cron:session): session opened for user root by (uid=0)
Apr 12 12:15:01 tecmint CRON[7700]: pam_unix(cron:session): session closed for user root
Apr 12 12:15:01 tecmint CRON[7699]: pam_unix(cron:session): session closed for user root
....

Another way to use more command in conjunction (pipe) with other commands, such as cat command, as presented on below example:

# cat /var/log/auth.log | more

View and Navigate Contents of File

In order to navigate through the file line by line press Enter key or press Spacebar key to navigate one page at a time, the page being your current terminal screen size. To exit the command just press q key.

A useful option of more command is the -number switch which allows you to set the number of line a page should contain. As an example display the auth.log file as a page of 10 lines:

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