Recursively copy a set of files from one directory to another in PowerShell

Question

I'm trying to copy all *.csproj.user files recursively from C:\Code\Trunk to C:\Code\F2.

For example:

C:\Code\Trunk\SomeProject\Blah\Blah.csproj.user

Would get copied to:

C:\Code\F2\SomeProject\Blah\Blah.csproj.user

My current attempt is:

Copy-Item C:\Code\Trunk -Filter *.csproj.user -Destination C:\Code\F2 -Recurse -WhatIf

However I get:

What if: Performing operation "Copy Directory" on Target "Item: C:\Code\Trunk Destination: C:\Code\F2\Trunk".

First, it wants to put them all in a new folder called F2\Trunk which is wrong. Second, it doesn't list any of the files. There should be about 10 files to be copied over.

What's the correct syntax for the command? Thanks!

Update:

Okay, it seems to have something to do with the fact that C:\Code\F2 already exists. If I try copying the files over to a destination that does not exist, it works.

I want to overwrite any existing .csproj.user files in the destination.

Answer 1

Seen this before, and I don't know why PowerShell can't seem to get it right (IMHO). What I would do is more cumbersome but it works.

$Source = 'C:\Code\Trunk'
$Files = '*.csproj.user'
$Dest = 'C:\Code\F2'
Get-ChildItem $Source -Filter $Files -Recurse | ForEach{
    $Path = ($_.DirectoryName + "\") -Replace [Regex]::Escape($Source), $Dest
    If(!(Test-Path $Path)){New-Item -ItemType Directory -Path $Path -Force | Out-Null
    Copy-Item $_.FullName -Destination $Path -Force
}

Answer 2

You guys are making this hideously complicated, when it's really simple:

Copy-Item C:\Code\Trunk -Filter *.csproj.user -Destination C:\Code\F2 -Recurse

Will copy the Directory, creating a "Trunk" directory in F2. If you want to avoid creating the top-level Trunk folder, you have to stop telling PowerShell to copy it:

Get-ChildItem C:\Code\Trunk | Copy-Item -Destination C:\Code\F2 -Recurse -filter *.csproj.user

Answer 3

While the most voted answer is perfectly valid for single file types, if you need to copy multiple file types there is a more useful functionality called robocopy exactly for this purpose with simpler usage

robocopy C:\Code\Trunk C:\Code\F2 *.cs *.xaml *.csproj *.appxmanifest /s

Answer 4

I tried Jaykul answer and it did not work for me. I had to change it as below to get it to work. I also created the C:\Code\F2 folder before it worked.

Get-ChildItem C:\Code\Trunk Recurse -filter *.csproj.user | Copy -Destination C:\Code\F2

Answer 5

Answer 1 looked good, and I changed to Move-Item for my purposes. However I found that in each folder it recursively went through, it only moved the first file. Below is my complete script which also includes some conversion of doc files to pdf's:

$Source = 'C:\Users\sgrody\Desktop\NSPM-Vol1'
$MoveFiles = '*.PDF'
$Dest = 'C:\Users\sgrody\Desktop\MedPassPDF'
$Folders = Get-ChildItem $Source -Directory -Recurse 


ForEach ($Folder in $Folders)
{
    $wdFormatPDF = 17
    $word = New-Object -ComObject word.application
    $word.visible = $false
    $folderpath = "$($Folder.FullName)\*"
    $fileTypes = "*.docx","*doc"
    Get-ChildItem -path $folderpath -include $fileTypes |
    foreach-object 
    {
     $path =  ($_.fullname).substring(0,($_.FullName).lastindexOf("."))
     "Converting $path to pdf ..."
     $doc = $word.documents.open($_.fullname)
     $doc.saveas([ref] $path, [ref]$wdFormatPDF)
     $doc.close()
    }
    $word.Quit()
}

Get-ChildItem $Source -Filter $MoveFiles -Recurse | ForEach{
    $Path = ($_.DirectoryName + "\") -Replace [Regex]::Escape($Source), $Dest
    If(!(Test-Path $Path)){New-Item -ItemType Directory -Path $Path -Force | Out-Null
    Move-Item $_.FullName -Destination $Path -Force
    }
}

Answer 6

Recently I had to replace a file present in several sub folders, I did it as below.

foreach($file in (Get-ChildItem File_you_want_to_be_copied.txt -Recurse)) {$target=$file.directoryname; Copy-Item -path C:\Source_Path\File_you_want_to_be_copied.txt -Destination $target}