rclone/docs/content/commands/rclone_cat.md

---
title: "rclone cat"
description: "Concatenates any files and sends them to stdout."
slug: rclone_cat
url: /commands/rclone_cat/
# autogenerated - DO NOT EDIT, instead edit the source code in cmd/cat/ and as part of making a release run "make commanddocs"
---
# rclone cat

Concatenates any files and sends them to stdout.

## Synopsis


rclone cat sends any files to standard output.

You can use it like this to output a single file

    rclone cat remote:path/to/file

Or like this to output any file in dir or its subdirectories.

    rclone cat remote:path/to/dir

Or like this to output any .txt files in dir or its subdirectories.

    rclone --include "*.txt" cat remote:path/to/dir

Use the `--head` flag to print characters only at the start, `--tail` for
the end and `--offset` and `--count` to print a section in the middle.
Note that if offset is negative it will count from the end, so
`--offset -1 --count 1` is equivalent to `--tail 1`.


```
rclone cat remote:path [flags]
```

## Options

```
      --count int    Only print N characters (default -1)
      --discard      Discard the output instead of printing
      --head int     Only print the first N characters
  -h, --help         help for cat
      --offset int   Start printing at offset N (or from end if -ve)
      --tail int     Only print the last N characters
```

See the [global flags page](/flags/) for global options not listed here.

## SEE ALSO

* [rclone](/commands/rclone/)	 - Show help for rclone commands, flags and backends.