Copy-item Files in Folders and subfolders in the same directory structure of source server using PowerShell

Question

I am struggling really hard to get this below script worked to copy the files in folders and sub folders in the proper structure (As the source server).

Lets say, there are folders mentioned below:

Main Folder: File aaa, File bbb

Sub Folder a: File 1, File 2, File 3

Sub Folder b: File 4, File 5, File 6

Script used:

Get-ChildItem -Path \\Server1\Test -recurse | ForEach-Object {
Copy-Item -LiteralPath $_.FullName -Destination \\server2\test |
Get-Acl -Path $_.FullName | Set-Acl -Path "\\server2\test\$(Split-Path -Path $_.FullName -Leaf)"

}

Output: File aaa, File bbb

Sub Folder a (Empty Folder)

Sub Folder b (Empty Folder)

File 1, File 2, File 3, File 4, File 5, File 6.

I want the files to get copied to their respective folders (Like the source folders). Any further help is highly appreciated.

Answer 1

This can be done just using Copy-Item. No need to use Get-Childitem. I think you are just overthinking it.

Copy-Item -Path C:\MyFolder -Destination \\Server\MyFolder -recurse -Force

I just tested it and it worked for me.

edit: included suggestion from the comments

# Add wildcard to source folder to ensure consistent behavior
Copy-Item -Path $sourceFolder\* -Destination $targetFolder -Recurse

Answer 2

one time i found this script, this copy folder and files and keep the same structure of the source in the destination, you can make some tries with this.

# Find the source files
$sourceDir="X:\sourceFolder"

# Set the target file
$targetDir="Y:\Destfolder\"
Get-ChildItem $sourceDir -Include *.* -Recurse |  foreach {

    # Remove the original  root folder
    $split = $_.Fullname  -split '\\'
    $DestFile =  $split[1..($split.Length - 1)] -join '\' 

    # Build the new  destination file path
    $DestFile = $targetDir+$DestFile

    # Move-Item won't  create the folder structure so we have to 
    # create a blank file  and then overwrite it
    $null = New-Item -Path  $DestFile -Type File -Force
    Move-Item -Path  $_.FullName -Destination $DestFile -Force
}

Answer 3

If you want to mirror same content from source to destination, try following one.

function CopyFilesToFolder ($fromFolder, $toFolder) {
    $childItems = Get-ChildItem $fromFolder
    $childItems | ForEach-Object {
         Copy-Item -Path $_.FullName -Destination $toFolder -Recurse -Force
    }
}

Test:

CopyFilesToFolder "C:\temp\q" "c:\temp\w"

Answer 4

I had trouble with the most popular answer (overthinking). It put AFolder in the \\Server\\MyFolder\\AFolder and I wanted the contents of AFolder and below in MyFolder. This didn't work.

Copy-Item -Verbose -Path C:\MyFolder\AFolder -Destination \\Server\MyFolder -recurse -Force

Plus I needed to Filter and only copy *.config files.

This didn't work, with "\\*" because it did not recurse

Copy-Item -Verbose -Path C:\MyFolder\AFolder\* -Filter *.config -Destination \\Server\MyFolder -recurse -Force

I ended up lopping off the beginning of the path string, to get the childPath relative to where I was recursing from. This works for the use-case in question and went down many subdirectories, which some other solutions do not.

Get-Childitem -Path "$($sourcePath)/**/*.config" -Recurse | 
ForEach-Object {
  $childPath = "$_".substring($sourcePath.length+1)
  $dest = "$($destPath)\$($childPath)" #this puts a \ between dest and child path
  Copy-Item -Verbose -Path $_ -Destination $dest -Force   
}

Answer 5

I wanted a solution to copy files modified after a certain date and time which mean't I need to use Get-ChildItem piped through a filter. Below is what I came up with:

$SourceFolder = "C:\Users\RCoode\Documents\Visual Studio 2010\Projects\MyProject"
$ArchiveFolder = "J:\Temp\Robin\Deploy\MyProject"
$ChangesStarted = New-Object System.DateTime(2013,10,16,11,0,0)
$IncludeFiles = ("*.vb","*.cs","*.aspx","*.js","*.css")

Get-ChildItem $SourceFolder -Recurse -Include $IncludeFiles | Where-Object {$_.LastWriteTime -gt $ChangesStarted} | ForEach-Object {
    $PathArray = $_.FullName.Replace($SourceFolder,"").ToString().Split('\') 

    $Folder = $ArchiveFolder

    for ($i=1; $i -lt $PathArray.length-1; $i++) {
        $Folder += "\" + $PathArray[$i]
        if (!(Test-Path $Folder)) {
            New-Item -ItemType directory -Path $Folder
        }
    }   
    $NewPath = Join-Path $ArchiveFolder $_.FullName.Replace($SourceFolder,"")

    Copy-Item $_.FullName -Destination $NewPath  
}