Recursively copy a set of files from one directory to another in PowerShell

Question

I'm trying to copy all *.csproj.user files recursively from C:\Code\Trunk to C:\Code\F2.

For example:

C:\Code\Trunk\SomeProject\Blah\Blah.csproj.user

Would get copied to:

C:\Code\F2\SomeProject\Blah\Blah.csproj.user

My current attempt is:

Copy-Item C:\Code\Trunk -Filter *.csproj.user -Destination C:\Code\F2 -Recurse -WhatIf

However I get:

What if: Performing operation "Copy Directory" on Target "Item: C:\Code\Trunk Destination: C:\Code\F2\Trunk".

First, it wants to put them all in a new folder called F2\Trunk which is wrong. Second, it doesn't list any of the files. There should be about 10 files to be copied over.

What's the correct syntax for the command? Thanks!

Update:

Okay, it seems to have something to do with the fact that C:\Code\F2 already exists. If I try copying the files over to a destination that does not exist, it works.

I want to overwrite any existing .csproj.user files in the destination.

The part about it creating a new folder is a bug which has been documented here. — Mike Zboray
– Mike Zboray, Commented Sep 16, 2014 at 7:32

MadBoy · Accepted Answer · 2019-11-10 15:53:10Z

103

You guys are making this hideously complicated, when it's really simple:

Copy-Item C:\Code\Trunk -Filter *.csproj.user -Destination C:\Code\F2 -Recurse

Will copy the Directory, creating a "Trunk" directory in F2. If you want to avoid creating the top-level Trunk folder, you have to stop telling PowerShell to copy it:

Get-ChildItem C:\Code\Trunk | Copy-Item -Destination C:\Code\F2 -Recurse -filter *.csproj.user

edited Nov 10, 2019 at 15:53

MadBoy

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answered Feb 23, 2017 at 15:26

Jaykul

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6 Comments

as9876 Over a year ago

No one would've dreamed that the first way was "telling" it to copy the folder, since "copy" is an alias to "copy-item", and "copy" in DOS didn't work that way, if I'm not mistaken. Hence the confusion and complication many have had with this.

Dan Over a year ago

For me, this flattens everything and copies the lot into one folder

Jaykul Over a year ago

@Dan Unfortunately, Copy-Item has a, uhm, bug (which has been enshrined to avoid "breaking" old scripts): If you want to create the destination directory, you can use the first command (just copy-item), if it already exists, that's when you need the second syntax.

Nimantha Over a year ago

For future reference: a Rejected Edit titled "The first form works without copying the root source folder, just add "*" to it and it will only copy items inside of it" proposed changing the last line of code to Copy-Item C:\Code\Trunk\* -Filter *.csproj.user -Destination C:\Code\F2 -Recurse : This edit was intended to address the author of the post and makes no sense as an edit. It should have been written as a comment or an answer.

Jaykul Over a year ago

@yoyo Yeah, we're using -filter only because copying one specific extension was the original request ...

|

user3141326 · Accepted Answer · 2017-12-05 10:27:40Z

31

While the most voted answer is perfectly valid for single file types, if you need to copy multiple file types there is a more useful functionality called robocopy exactly for this purpose with simpler usage

robocopy C:\Code\Trunk C:\Code\F2 *.cs *.xaml *.csproj *.appxmanifest /s

answered Dec 5, 2017 at 10:27

user3141326

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1 Comment

speckledcarp Over a year ago

I had to use Robocopy, because Copy-Item errored on longer file paths

Community · Accepted Answer · 2021-12-21 10:29:21Z

7

I tried Jaykul answer and it did not work for me. I had to change it as below to get it to work. I also created the C:\Code\F2 folder before it worked.

Get-ChildItem C:\Code\Trunk -Recurse -filter *.csproj.user | Copy -Destination C:\Code\F2

edited Dec 21, 2021 at 10:29

CommunityBot

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answered Feb 20, 2018 at 4:37

Stuart Smith

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2 Comments

Skippy VonDrake Over a year ago

exactly what I needed. But had to add the hyphen character before 'Recurse'

Oliver Over a year ago

This one did not recreate the source folder structure in the destination folder for me.

TheMadTechnician · Accepted Answer · 2014-09-12 22:19:38Z

6

Seen this before, and I don't know why PowerShell can't seem to get it right (IMHO). What I would do is more cumbersome but it works.

$Source = 'C:\Code\Trunk'
$Files = '*.csproj.user'
$Dest = 'C:\Code\F2'
Get-ChildItem $Source -Filter $Files -Recurse | ForEach{
    $Path = ($_.DirectoryName + "\") -Replace [Regex]::Escape($Source), $Dest
    If(!(Test-Path $Path)){New-Item -ItemType Directory -Path $Path -Force | Out-Null
    Copy-Item $_.FullName -Destination $Path -Force
}

answered Sep 12, 2014 at 22:19

TheMadTechnician

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2 Comments

bitbonk Over a year ago

I think you can remove the whole regex thing if you use the parameter -LiteralPath for the Copy-Item command

Dan Over a year ago

This only seems to copy one file from each subfolder

Steve · Accepted Answer · 2016-07-29 14:14:49Z

Answer 1 looked good, and I changed to Move-Item for my purposes. However I found that in each folder it recursively went through, it only moved the first file. Below is my complete script which also includes some conversion of doc files to pdf's:

$Source = 'C:\Users\sgrody\Desktop\NSPM-Vol1'
$MoveFiles = '*.PDF'
$Dest = 'C:\Users\sgrody\Desktop\MedPassPDF'
$Folders = Get-ChildItem $Source -Directory -Recurse 


ForEach ($Folder in $Folders)
{
    $wdFormatPDF = 17
    $word = New-Object -ComObject word.application
    $word.visible = $false
    $folderpath = "$($Folder.FullName)\*"
    $fileTypes = "*.docx","*doc"
    Get-ChildItem -path $folderpath -include $fileTypes |
    foreach-object 
    {
     $path =  ($_.fullname).substring(0,($_.FullName).lastindexOf("."))
     "Converting $path to pdf ..."
     $doc = $word.documents.open($_.fullname)
     $doc.saveas([ref] $path, [ref]$wdFormatPDF)
     $doc.close()
    }
    $word.Quit()
}

Get-ChildItem $Source -Filter $MoveFiles -Recurse | ForEach{
    $Path = ($_.DirectoryName + "\") -Replace [Regex]::Escape($Source), $Dest
    If(!(Test-Path $Path)){New-Item -ItemType Directory -Path $Path -Force | Out-Null
    Move-Item $_.FullName -Destination $Path -Force
    }
}

Daniel Panario · Accepted Answer · 2020-02-27 17:42:28Z

0

Recently I had to replace a file present in several sub folders, I did it as below.

foreach($file in (Get-ChildItem File_you_want_to_be_copied.txt -Recurse)) {$target=$file.directoryname; Copy-Item -path C:\Source_Path\File_you_want_to_be_copied.txt -Destination $target}

answered Feb 27, 2020 at 17:42

Daniel Panario

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