Prevent Powershell Copy-Item to create sub dir in target when target folder exists

Question

I am copying folders with

Copy-Item $source $target -Force -Recurse -Container -ErrorAction Stop

If $target folder already exists, sub folder will be created under $target with same name and files will be copied there. How do I prevent this from happening?

Ansgar Wiechers · Accepted Answer · 2014-11-11 15:20:41Z

2

Check if $target already exists, and add a trailing \* to $source if it does, so that only the contents of the folder are copied, not the folder itself. Like this:

if (Test-Path -LiteralPath $target) {
  $source += '\*'
}
Copy-Item $source $target -Force -Recurse -Container -ErrorAction Stop

edited Nov 11, 2014 at 15:20

answered Nov 11, 2014 at 15:15

Ansgar Wiechers

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