Move a list of files(in a text file) to a directory?

bash won't read the contents of the file unless you tell it to.

for file in $(cat ~/Desktop/files.txt); do mv "$file" ~/newfolder; done

You need to tell your loop to read the file, otherwise it is just executing:

mv ~/Desktop/files.txt ~/newfolder

In addition, as nerdwaller said, you need separators. Try this:

while read file; do mv "$file" ~/newfolder; done < ~/Desktop/files.txt

If your paths or file names contain spaces or other strange characters, you may need to do this:

while IFS= read -r file; do mv "$file" ~/newfolder; done < ~/Desktop/files.txt

Notice the quotes " around the $file variable.

If the filenames do not contain whitespace:

mv -t dest_dir $(< text.file)

is probably the most concise way.

If there is whitespace in the filenames

while IFS= read -r filename; do mv "$filename" dest_dir; done < test.file

is safe.