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# The magic of Pipe Viewer (pv)
- URL: https://www.binarysludge.com/2012/09/10/the-magic-of-pipe-viewer-pv/
- Published: 2012-09-10T12:15:06.000Z
- Updated: 2015-01-16T17:57:56.000Z
- Author: Andrew Martin
- Tags: bash, linux, system adminstration, #Import 2026-10-22 12:56

[pv](http://www.ivarch.com/programs/pv.shtml?ref=binarysludge.com) is a handy pipe viewing tool that gives feedback on the progress of long-running shell operations.

![pv](http://f33ddbb901d36ba16750-2feac5334b971873f806fac01717d664.r20.cf3.rackcdn.com/pv.png) 

From the [website](http://www.ivarch.com/programs/pv.shtml?ref=binarysludge.com):

> pv - Pipe Viewer - is a terminal-based tool for monitoring the progress of data through a pipeline. It can be inserted into any normal pipeline between two processes to give a visual indication of how quickly data is passing through, how long it has taken, how near to completion it is, and an estimate of how long it will be until completion.