MKDIR(1) General Commands Manual MKDIR(1)

mkdir — make directories

mkdir [-pv] [-m mode] directory_name ...

The mkdir utility creates the directories named as operands, in the order specified, using mode “rwxrwxrwx” (0777) as modified by the current umask(2).

The options are as follows:

mode
Set the file permission bits of the final created directory to the specified mode. The mode argument can be in any of the formats specified to the chmod(1) command. If a symbolic mode is specified, the operation characters ‘+’ and ‘-’ are interpreted relative to an initial mode of “a=rwx”.
Create intermediate directories as required. If this option is not specified, the full path prefix of each operand must already exist. On the other hand, with this option specified, no error will be reported if a directory given as an operand already exists. Intermediate directories are created with permission bits of “rwxrwxrwx” (0777) as modified by the current umask, plus write and search permission for the owner.
Be verbose when creating directories, listing them as they are created.

The user must have write permission in the parent directory.

The mkdir utility exits 0 on success, and >0 if an error occurs.

Create a directory named foobar:

$ mkdir foobar

Create a directory named foobar and set its file mode to 700:

$ mkdir -m 700 foobar

Create a directory named cow/horse/monkey, creating any non-existent intermediate directories as necessary:

$ mkdir -p cow/horse/monkey

The -v option is non-standard and its use in scripts is not recommended.

rmdir(1)

The mkdir utility is expected to be IEEE Std 1003.2 (“POSIX.2”) compatible.

A mkdir command appeared in Version 1 AT&T UNIX.

March 15, 2013 macOS 15.6