---
name: "zfs-rewrite"
section: "8"
platform: "linux"
package: "zfsutils-linux"
version: "2.3.9-0+deb13u1"
release: "Debian 13 (Trixie)"
platforms: ["linux", "freebsd"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/zfs-rewrite"
---

# zfs-rewrite(8)

rewrite specified files without modification

## NAME

**zfs-rewrite** – rewrite specified files without modification

## SYNOPSIS

**zfs** **rewrite** \[**-rvx**\] \[**-l** *length*\] \[**-o** *offset*\] *file*\|*directory*…

## DESCRIPTION

Rewrite blocks of specified *file* as is without modification at a new location and possibly with new properties, such as checksum, compression, dedup, copies, etc, as if they were atomically read and written back.

- **-l** *length*

  Rewrite at most this number of bytes.

- **-o** *offset*

  Start at this offset in bytes.

- **-r**

  Recurse into directories.

- **-v**

  Print names of all successfully rewritten files.

- **-x**

  Don't cross file system mount points when recursing.

## NOTES

Rewrite of cloned blocks and blocks that are part of any snapshots, same as some property changes may increase pool space usage. Holes that were never written or were previously zero-compressed are not rewritten and will remain holes even if compression is disabled.

Rewritten blocks will be seen as modified in next snapshot and as such included into the incremental **zfs** **send** stream.

If a **-l** or **-o** value request a rewrite to regions past the end of the file, then those regions are silently ignored, and no error is reported.

## SEE ALSO

[zfsprops(7)](/zfsprops/7.md)