PowerShell - Copy specific files from specific folders

Question

So, the folder structure looks like this:

1. SourceFolder
   • file1.txt
   • file1.doc
     2. Subfolder1
        • file2.txt
        • file2.doc
          3. SubSubFolder
             • file3.txt
             • doc3.txt

What I want to do is copy all .txt files from folders, whose (folder) names contains the eng, to a destination folder. Just all the files inside the folder - not the file structure.

What I used is this:

$dest = "C:\Users\username\Desktop\Final"
$source = "C:\Users\username\Desktop\Test1"
Copy-Item $source\eng*\*.txt $dest -Recurse

The problem is that it copies the .txt files only from each parent folder but not the sub-folders.

How can I include all the sub-folders in this script and keep the eng name check as well? Can you please help me?

I am talking about PowerShell commands. Should I use robocopy instead?

Answer 1

Yet another PowerShell solution :)

# Setup variables
$Dst = 'C:\Users\username\Desktop\Final'
$Src = 'C:\Users\username\Desktop\Test1'
$FolderName = 'eng*'
$FileType = '*.txt'

# Get list of 'eng*' file objects
Get-ChildItem -Path $Src -Filter $FolderName -Recurse -Force |
    # Those 'eng*' file objects should be folders
    Where-Object {$_.PSIsContainer} |
        # For each 'eng*' folder
        ForEach-Object {
        # Copy all '*.txt' files in it to the destination folder
            Copy-Item -Path (Join-Path -Path $_.FullName -ChildPath '\*') -Filter $FileType -Destination $Dst -Force
        }

Answer 2

You can do this :

$dest = "C:\NewFolder"
$source = "C:\TestFolder"
$files = Get-ChildItem $source -File -include "*.txt" -Recurse | Where-Object { $_.DirectoryName -like "*eng*" }
Copy-Item -Path $files -Destination $dest

Answer 3

Another take:

$SourceRoot = <Source folder path>
$TargetFolder = <Target folder path>


@(Get-ChildItem $SourceRoot -Recurse -File -Filter *.txt| Select -ExpandProperty Fullname) -like '*\eng*\*' |
foreach {Copy-Item $_ -Destination $TargetFolder}

Answer 4

It may be easier to first get a list of all the folders that contain eng in the name.

$dest = "C:\Users\username\Desktop\Final"
$source = "C:\Users\username\Desktop\Test1"

$engFolders = Get-ChildItem $source -Directory -Recurse | Where { $_.BaseName -match "^eng" }
Foreach ($folder In $engFolders) {
    Copy-Item ($folder.FullName + "\*.txt") $dest
}

Answer 5

Fine to do that with powershell. Try:

$dest = "C:\Users\username\Desktop\Final"
$source = "C:\Users\username\Desktop\Test1"

Get-ChildItem $source -filter "*.txt" -Recurse | Where-Object { $_.DirectoryName -match "eng"} | ForEach-Object { Copy-Item $_.fullname $dest }