Write to file, but overwrite it if it exists

The >> redirection operator will append lines to the end of the specified file, where-as the single greater than > will empty and overwrite the file.

echo "text" > 'Users/Name/Desktop/TheAccount.txt'

In Bash, if you have set noclobber a la set -o noclobber, then you use the syntax >|

For example:

echo "some text" >| existing_file

This also works if the file doesn't exist yet

• Check if noclobber is set with: set -o | grep noclobber

• For a more detailed explanation on this special type of operator, see this post

• For a more exhaustive list of redirection operators, refer to this post

Despite NylonSmile's answer, which is "sort of" correct.. I was unable to overwrite files, in this manner..

echo "i know about Pipes, girlfriend" > thatAnswer

zsh: file exists: thatAnswer

to solve my issues.. I had to use... >!, á la..

[[ $FORCE_IT == 'YES' ]] && echo "$@" >! "$X" || echo "$@" > "$X"

Obviously, be careful with this...

If your environment doesn't allow overwriting with >, use pipe | and tee instead as follows:

echo "text" | tee 'Users/Name/Desktop/TheAccount.txt'

Note this will also print to the stdout. In case this is unwanted, you can redirect the output to /dev/null as follows:

echo "text" | tee 'Users/Name/Desktop/TheAccount.txt' > /dev/null