I am trying to copy a whole bunch of files using Powershell, from one directory to another on my computer.
I used Get-ChildItem C:\Users\Tom\Google Drive\My Files\*\Assessment 1\* to identify that this was the path that I wanted to copy too, and I know about Copy-Item, but I want to maintain parts of the path name when copied.
Example:
If I copy from C:\Users\Tom\Google Drive\My Files\Cool Stuff\Assessment 1\*
I want the files to go to a folder that is created called C:\Users\Tom\Archive\Cool Stuff\Assessment 1
Whereas if I copy from C:\Users\Tom\Google Drive\My Files\New Stuff\Assessment 1\*
I want the files to go to a folder that is created called C:\Users\Tom\Archive\New Stuff\Assessment 1
You could use the Get-ChildItem cmdlet to recursively find all Assessment 1 folders within your base directory and then remove the base path using -replace to finally copy the items using the Copy-Item cmdlet:
$baseDir = 'C:\Users\Tom\Google Drive\My Files\'
$destination = 'C:\Users\Tom\Archive\'
Get-ChildItem $baseDir -directory -Filter 'Assessment 1' -Recurse | ForEach-Object {
$newPath = Join-Path $destination ($_.FullName -replace [regex]::Escape($baseDir))
Copy-Item $_.FullName $newPath -Force -Recurse
}
Related
Got another multi-step process I'm looking to streamline. Basically, I'm looking to build a Powershell script to do three things:
Get-Childitem to look for folders with a specific name (we'll call it NAME1 as a placeholder)
For each folder it finds that has the name, I want it to output the full directory to a TXT file (so that in the end I wind up with a text file that has a list of the results it found, with their full paths; so if it finds folders with "NAME1" in five different subdirectories of the folder I give it, I want the full path beginning with the drive letter and ending with "NAME1")
Then I want it to take the list from the TXT file, and copy each file path to another drive and preserve directory structure
So basically, if it searches and finds this:
D:\TEST1\NAME1
D:\TEST7\NAME1
D:\TEST8\NAME1\
That's what I want to appear in the text file.
Then what I want it to do is to go through each line in the text file and plug the value into a Copy-Item (I'm thinking the source directory would get assigned to a variable), so that when it's all said and done, on the second drive I wind up with this:
E:\BACKUP\TEST1\NAME1
E:\BACKUP\TEST7\NAME1
E:\BACKUP\TEST8\NAME1\
So in short, I'm looking for a Get-Childitem that can define a series of paths, which Copy-Item can then use to back them up elsewhere.
I already have one way to do this, but the problem is it seems to copy everything every time, and since one of these drives is an SSD I only want to copy what's new/changed each time (not to mention that would save time when I need to run a backup):
$source = "C:\"
$target = "E:\BACKUP\"
$search = "NAME1"
$source_regex = [regex]::escape($source)
(gci $source -recurse | where {-not ($_.psiscontainer)} | select -expand fullname) -match "\\$search\\" |
foreach {
$file_dest = ($_ | split-path -parent) -replace $source_regex,$target
if (-not (test-path $file_dest)){mkdir $file_dest}
copy-item $_ -Destination $file_dest -force -verbose
}
If there's a way to do this that wouldn't require writing out a TXT file each time I'd be all for that, but I don't know a way to do this the way I'm looking for except a Copy-Item.
I'd be very grateful for any help I can get with this. Thanks all!
If I understand correctly, you want to copy all folders with a certain name, keeping the original folder structure in the destination path and copy only files that are newer than what is in the destination already.
Try
$source = 'C:\'
$target = 'E:\BACKUP\'
$search = 'NAME1'
# -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue because in the C:\ disk you are bound to get Access Denied on some paths
Get-ChildItem -Path $source -Directory -Recurse -Filter $search -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue | ForEach-Object {
# construct the destination folder path
$dest = Join-Path -Path $target -ChildPath $_.FullName.Substring($source.Length)
# copy the folder including its files and subfolders (but not empty subfolders)
# for more switches see https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/administration/windows-commands/robocopy
robocopy $_.FullName $dest /XO /S /R:0
}
If you don't want console output of robocopy you can silence it by appending 2>&1, so neither stdout nor stderr is echoed
If you want to keep a file after this with both the source paths and the destinations, I'd suggest doing
$source = 'C:\'
$target = 'E:\BACKUP\'
$search = 'NAME1'
$output = [System.Collections.Generic.List[object]]::new()
# -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue because in the C:\ disk you are bound to get Access Denied on some paths
Get-ChildItem -Path $source -Directory -Recurse -Filter $search -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue | ForEach-Object {
# construct the destination folder path
$dest = Join-Path -Path $target -ChildPath $_.FullName.Substring($source.Length)
# add an object to the output list
$output.Add([PsCustomObject]#{Source = $_.FullName; Destination = $dest })
# copy the folder including its files and subfolders (but not empty subfolders)
# for more switches see https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/administration/windows-commands/robocopy
robocopy $_.FullName $dest /XO /S /R:0
}
# write the output to csv file
$output | Export-Csv -Path 'E:\backup.csv' -NoTypeInformation
so trying to find a way to combine a couple of things the Stack Overflow crowd has helped me do in the past. So I know how to find folders with a specific name and move them where I want them to go:
$source_regex = [regex]::escape($sourceDir)
(gci $sourceDir -recurse | where {-not ($_.psiscontainer)} | select -expand fullname) -match "\\$search\\" |
foreach {
$file_dest = ($_ | split-path -parent) -replace $source_regex,$targetDir
if (-not (test-path $file_dest)){mkdir $file_dest}
move-item $_ -Destination $file_dest -force -verbose
}
And I also know how to find and delete files of a specific file extension within a preset directory:
Get-ChildItem $source -Include $searchfile -Recurse -Force | foreach{ "Removing file $($_.FullName)"; Remove-Item -force -recurse $_}
What I'm trying to do now is combine the two. Basically, I'm looking for a way to tell Powershell:
"Look for all folders named 'Draft Materials.' When you find a folder with that name, get its full path ($source), then run a command to delete files of a given file extension ($searchfile) from that folder."
What I'm trying to do is create a script I can use to clean up an archive drive when and if space starts to get tight. The idea is that as I develop things, a lot of times I go through a ton of incremental non-final drafts (hence folder name "Draft Materials"), and I want to get rid of the exported products (the PDFs, the BMPs, the AVIs, the MOVs, atc.) and just leave the master files that created them (the INDDs, the PRPROJs, the AEPs, etc.) so I can reconstruct them down the line if I ever need to. I can tell the script what drive and folder to search (and I'd assign that to a variable since the backup location may change and I'd like to just change it once), but I need help with the rest.
I'm stuck because I'm not quite sure how to combine the two pieces of code that I have to get Powershell to do this.
If what you want is to
"Look for all folders named 'Draft Materials.' When you find a folder with that name, get its full path ($source), then run a command to delete files of a given file extension ($searchfile) from that folder."
then you could do something like:
$rootPath = 'X:\Path\To\Start\Searching\From' # the starting point for the search
$searchFolder = 'Draft Materials' # the folder name to search for
$deleteThese = '*.PDF', '*.BMP', '*.AVI', '*.MOV' # an array of file patterns to delete
# get a list of all folders called 'Draft Materials'
Get-ChildItem -Path $rootPath -Directory -Filter $searchFolder -Recurse | ForEach-Object {
# inside each of these folders, get the files you want to delete and remove them
Get-ChildItem -Path $_.FullName -File -Recurse -Include $deleteThese |
Remove-Item -WhatIf
}
Or use Get-ChildItem only once, having it search for files. Then test if their fullnames contain the folder called 'Draft Materials'
$rootPath = 'X:\Path\To\Start\Searching\From'
$searchFolder = 'Draft Materials'
$deleteThese = '*.PDF', '*.BMP', '*.AVI', '*.MOV'
# get a list of all files with extensions from the $deleteThese array
Get-ChildItem -Path $rootPath -File -Recurse -Include $deleteThese |
# if in their full path names the folder 'Draft Materials' is present, delete them
Where-Object { $_.FullName -match "\\$searchFolder\\" } |
Remove-Item -WhatIf
In both cases I have added safety switch -WhatIf so when you run this, nothing gets deleted and in the console is written what would happen.
If that info shows the correct files are being removed, take off (or comment out) -Whatif and run the code again.
Here is a section of code from a larger script. The goal is to recurse through a source directory, then copy all the files it finds into a destination directory, sorted into subdirectories by file extension. It works great the first time I run it. If I run it again, instead of overwriting existing files, it fails with this error on each file that already exists in the destination:
Copy-Item : Cannot overwrite the item with itself
I try, whenever possible, to write scripts that are idempotent but I havn't been able to figure this one out. I would prefer not to add a timestamp to the destination file's name; I'd hate to end up with thirty versions of the exact same file. Is there a way to do this without extra logic to check for a file's existance and delete it if it's already there?
## Parameters for source and destination directories.
$Source = "C:\Temp"
$Destination = "C:\Temp\Sorted"
# Build list of files to sort.
$Files = Get-ChildItem -Path $Source -Recurse | Where-Object { !$_.PSIsContainer }
# Copy the files in the list to destination folder, sorted in subfolders by extension.
foreach ($File in $Files) {
$Extension = $File.Extension.Replace(".","")
$ExtDestDir = "$Destination\$Extension"
# Check to see if the folder exists, if not create it
$Exists = Test-Path $ExtDestDir
if (!$Exists) {
# Create the directory because it doesn't exist
New-Item -Path $ExtDestDir -ItemType "Directory" | Out-Null
}
# Copy the file
Write-Host "Copying $File to $ExtDestDir"
Copy-Item -Path $File.FullName -Destination $ExtDestDir -Force
}
$Source = "C:\Temp"
$Destination = "C:\Temp\Sorted"
You are trying to copy files from a source directory to a sub directory of that source directory. The first time it works because that directory is empty. The second time it doesn't because you are enumerating files of that sub directory too and thus attempt to copy files over themselves.
If you really need to copy the files into a sub directory of the source directory, you have to exclude the destination directory from enumeration like this:
$Files = Get-ChildItem -Path $Source -Directory |
Where-Object { $_.FullName -ne $Destination } |
Get-ChildItem -File -Recurse
Using a second Get-ChildItem call at the beginning, which only enumerates first-level directories, is much faster than filtering the output of the Get-ChildItem -Recurse call, which would needlessly process each file of the destination directory.
I have many folders, some of which have subfolders. I want to find and copy to special directory all files of one type, for example .txt, from them. I use this script and it works, but it copies all folders on the way to my file too. How can I avoid this? I thought about deleting all empty folders after copying, but I'm sure that the more right way exists.
$folders = [IO.Directory]::GetDirectories("S:\other","*","AllDirectories")
Foreach ($dir in $folders) {
Copy-Item -Path $dir -Filter *.txt -Recurse -Destination 'D:\FinishFolder'
}
Use Get-ChildItem to discover the files, then copy them 1 by 1:
Get-ChildItem S:\other -Filter *.txt -Recurse |Copy-Item -Destination 'D:\FinishFolder'
I have a folder that contains several thousand files. I would like to write a Powershell script that loops through the files and copies each file whose filename contains a specific keyword. In pseudocode:
For each file in C:\[Directory]
If filename contains "Presentation" Then
copy file in C:\[Directory 2]
Simply like this ?
copy-item "C:\SourceDir\*Presentation*" "C:\DestinationDir"
or like this :
copy-item "C:\SourceDir\*" "C:\DestinationDir" -Filter "*rrrr*"
But a risk exist if you have a directory with "presentation" in his name into the source directory. Then take all method proposed here and add -file in get-childitem command.
Like in this short version of Robdy code :
gci "C:\SourceDir" -file | ? Name -like "*Presentation*" | cpi -d "C:\DestinationDir"
That code should do the trick:
$files = Get-ChildItem -Path "C:\path\to\source\folder"
$files | Where-Object Name -Like "*Presentation*" | Copy-Item -Destination "C:\path\to\destination\folder"
Of course can be written in one line but I put in two for visibility.
Edit: as Esperento57 pointed out, you might want to add -ItemType File to Get-ChildItem cmdlet to not include folders with 'Presentation' in their name. Also, depending on your needs you might also want to use -Recurse param to include files in subfolders.
If you have files in subfolders and you want to keep the path in destination folder you'll have to change the script a bit to something like:
Copy-Item -Destination $_.FullName.Replace('C:\path\to\source\folder','C:\path\to\destination\folder')
And for the above you'll have to make sure that folders are actually created (e.g. by using -Force for Copy-Item.
This seems to work:
$src = "Dir1"
$dst = "Dir2"
Get-ChildItem $src -Filter "*Presentation*" -Recurse | % {
New-Item -Path $_.FullName.Replace($src,$dst) -ItemType File -Force
Copy-Item -Path $_.FullName -Destination $_.FullName.Replace($src,$dst) -Force
}
Try something like this:
Get-ChildItem "C:\Your\Directory" -File -Filter *YourKeyWordToIsolate* |
Foreach-Object { Copy-Item $_.FullName -Destination "C:\Your\New\Directory" }
... but, of course, you'll need to fill in some of the blanks left open by your pseudocode example.
Also, that's a one-liner, but I inserted a return carriage for easier readability.