PowerShell 5 Copy-Item not working

Question

I am trying to copy all .pdf files from all folders and sub folder (dirs. and subdirs).

Folder1
  1.pdf
  2.pdf
Folder1\Foder2\3.pdf
Folder1\Folder2\4.pdf
Folder1\Foder2\Folder3\5.pdf
Folder1\Folder2\Folder3\6.pdf

First I used

 $source = "c:\Folder1\"
 $desti = "D:\foderA\"
 PS> Get-ChildItem -recurse $source -Filter "*.pdf"

It displays all the files in dir and sub dir but when I try to use copy-Item I get the error.

 PS> Get-ChildItem -recurse $source -Filter "*.pdf" | % {Copy-Item $_    -destination $desti}

Error: Copy-Item : Cannot find path 'C:\Folder1\Folder2.... because it does not exist. Error points to source being non-existent. What am I doing wrong? Is it because I have read only on the source drive\Folder?

Thanks

Bill_Stewart · Accepted Answer · 2017-11-15 21:42:52Z

3

You can pipe the output objects from Get-ChildItem directly to Copy-Item (i.e., you don't need % [which is an alias for ForEach-Object]); e.g.:

Get-ChildItem -Recurse $source -Filter "*.pdf" -File | Copy-Item -Destination $desti

The -File parameter restricts the search only to files.

edited Nov 15, 2017 at 21:42

answered Nov 15, 2017 at 19:27

Bill_Stewart

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3 Comments

Esperento57 Over a year ago

May be add -file in gci (if directory contain .pdf) ;)

Bharat Patel Over a year ago

Works with or without %

Bill_Stewart Over a year ago

@BharatPatel that may be, but not necessary in this case.

Donavan White · Accepted Answer · 2017-11-15 19:35:59Z

0

You almost have it right, $_ is only grabbing the filename, so you lose the path and it tries to use the path your running the script from. Use this instead which will keep the full path.

Get-ChildItem -Recurse $source -Filter "*.pdf" | % {Copy-Item $_.FullName -Destination $desti}

answered Nov 15, 2017 at 19:35

Donavan White

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Comments

Kellen Stuart · Accepted Answer · 2017-11-15 19:48:23Z

0

cp -Recurse C:\path\to\search\*.pdf C:\path\to\output\copies

answered Nov 15, 2017 at 19:48

Kellen Stuart

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