42

This is a stupid question, but I just don't know why it isn't working.

I am trying to copy the files from FolderA to FolderB recursively. I am doing this:

Copy-Item -Path "C:\FolderA\" -Destination "C:\FolderB\" -recurse -Force -Verbose

It works great, no problem.

Except the result in FolderB is this:

C:\FolderB\FolderA\file.txt

Whereas I want it to be:

C:\FolderB\file.txt

What stupid obvious thing am I missing?

CleverPatrick
  • 2,042

3 Answers3

53

Your command is telling PowerShell to copy the folder itself, with all its contents, to the destination folder. To copy only the contents of the original folder, change your path as follows:

Copy-Item -Path "C:\FolderA\*" -Destination "C:\FolderB\" -recurse -Force -Verbose

Notice the asterisk (*) after the folder name. This will copy the content (including subfolders) of the folder, but not the folder itself to the destination folder.

Using the Copy-Item Cmdlet

FastEthernet
  • 5,017
  • 5
    Note that this doesn't copy the folder structure if destination folder does not exist. Calling md "C:\FolderB" before Copy-Item seems to avoid this problem. – zett42 Oct 29 '19 at 15:24
  • Building on @zett42's comment above, if the destination folder does not already exist, it seems Copy-Item will reproduce the folder structure, but one level down (e.g. C:\FolderA\B\C is copied to C:\FolderB\C instead of C:\FolderB\B\C), and may also fail when multiple subfolders exist. Always ensure the destination folder exists before calling Copy-Item. This smells like a bug (I can't see any reason why this inconsistent behaviour would be desirable). – Marc Durdin Jan 09 '20 at 04:58
  • 2
    See also comment on SO. – Marc Durdin Jan 09 '20 at 05:07
  • I had . and it still didn't copy the subfolders. Changing to just * fixed this issue. – John Dyer Apr 21 '21 at 14:36
  • This approach does not work: it errors out with Container cannot be copied onto existing leaf item. for every single subdirectory you want to copy. – alex Mar 11 '24 at 20:19
  • Okay - it turns out you have to ensure the target top-level root directory exists. You don't have to use md, you can also use New-Item. If you don't, then the top-level root directory still gets created, and some directories and some files may get copied over - but not all of them. This behavior can only be described as a horrendous Powershell bug that has not been fixed in Powershell 7+ and still exists in 2024. – alex Mar 11 '24 at 21:13
1

You can use -File -Recurse for Copy only Files Recursively:

Copy-Item -Path "C:\Source" -Destination "C:\Dest" -File -recurse -Force -Verbose

Or use -Directory -Recurse to copy only empy folder structure:

Copy-Item -Path "C:\Source" -Destination "C:\Dest" -Directory -recurse -Force -Verbose
John
  • 203
Paul Andres Pedroza M
  • 11
0

Setting -Container:$false will omit the directory structure:

Copy-Item -Path C:\temp\tree -Filter *.txt -Recurse -Container:$false

Docs: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/module/microsoft.powershell.management/copy-item?view=powershell-7.1#example-12--recursively-copy-files-from-a-folder-tree-into-the-current-folder

ZachB
  • 121