A command that looks for coreutils basic commands (cp, mv, dd, tar, gzip/gunzip, cat, etc.) currently running on your system and displays the percentage of copied data. It can also show estimated time and throughput, and provides a “top-like” mode (monitoring). - progress

One big file

pv

it does NOT preserve permission.

pv my_big_file > backup/my_big_file

Several files

Midnight-commander

sudo apt-get install mc

rsync

rsync -ah --progress [source] [destination]

If you have rsync 3.1 or higher (rsync –version), you can copy (cp -Rpn) while preserving permissions and ownership, recurse directories, “no clobber,” and display overall progress (instead of just progress by file), copy rate, and (very rough) estimated time remaining with:

sudo rsync -a --info=progress2 --no-i-r /source /destination

curl

it does NOT preserve permission.

curl -o [destination] FILE://[source]

progress

sudo apt-get install progress

This tool can be used like that:

cp bigfile newfile & progress -mp $!