Copy and paste files through clipboard in Powershell - powershell

Question

In the folder E:\Files there are 2 files, which I want to copy and paste into D:\Dest:
E:\Files\
File1.txt
File2.txt
Using the keyboard I would simply select the 2 files, push ctrl+c, and in the destination folder D:\Dest\ I then push ctrl+v.
Now I want to achieve this using Powershell. So I copy the files into the clipboard:
Set-Clipboard -Path E:\Files\*
But how to paste those files now into the destination folder? Obviously, I will need Get-Clipboard. But it's not quite clear to me, how to use it, in order to paste the files.
I know I could copy the contents of these 2 files and then by using Set-Content create those files in D:\Dest\ on my own and copy the content into them. But is there any direct way? Because with Set-Clipboard those files already are in the clipboard. They just need to be pasted. I can use ctrl+v and it works. But I want to paste them through Powershell. Any ideas?

Answer 1

Here's the script I use to paste files/directories:
$fileDrop = get-clipboard -Format FileDropList
if($fileDrop -eq $null)
{
write-host "No files on the clipboard"
return
}
foreach($file in $fileDrop)
{
if($file.Mode.StartsWith("d"))
{
$source = join-path $file.Directory $file.Name
$e = "copy-item -Recurse $source $($file.Name)"
$e
Invoke-Expression $e
}
else
{
$file.Name
$file | copy-item
}
}

Answer 2

You could use the .NET Clipboard class:
Add-Type -AssemblyName System.Windows.Forms
$files = [System.Collections.Specialized.StringCollection]::new()
$files.Add('YOUR_FILE_PATH_HERE')
[System.Windows.Forms.Clipboard]::SetFileDropList($files)
This copies YOUR_FILE_PATH_HERE to the local clipboard.
You could use this, for example, when you're in a local terminal and need to copy file(s) to a remote session without PowerShell remoting (e.g., RDP or Citrix) without opening the directory in Explorer.
It's a little unwieldy, so if I used it a lot, I'd probably put it in a function like Copy-FileToClipboard and add it to my PowerShell profile.

Answer 3

Inspired by the other comment in this thread, but refactored, and supporting both move and copy actions (moving is the default action, while copying is achieved with the -c parameter). The script pastes clipboard files and folders into the current directory (I have placed it in a PATH directory and use it as paste).
$data = Get-Clipboard -Format FileDropList
if ($data -ne $null)
{
foreach ($file in $data)
{
if ($args[0] -eq "-c")
{
$action = "Copied:"
Copy-Item -Recurse -LiteralPath $file
}
else
{
$action = "Moved:"
Move-Item -LiteralPath $file
}
$action
"- from: $(Join-Path $file.Directory $file.Name)"
"- into: $(Join-Path "$(Get-Location)" $file.Name)"
}
}
The -LiteralPath parameter was needed to handle filenames containing square brackets.