How do I copy the directory and its folders in windows command line?

Question

Windows environment :

I am having some difficulties with doing what I expected to be rather simple. I have for the past 2 hours been unable to copy a directory and its files and sub-directories to another location.

eg: I have Directory MyDir with files 01.txt 02.txt and a Sub-Directory MyDir2 with files sd01.txt inside it.

I have been trying to use the commands ROBOCOPY as well as XCOPY. Here are 2 examples of the commands I have tried.

>ROBOCOPY /MIR MyDir temp

>ROBOCOPY /MIR /CREATE MyDir temp

What happens is the only the files and directories that are inside of MyDir are being copied.

What I want is for the folder MyDir itself to be copied to temp.

What is incorrect about my syntax?

Answer 1

For XCOPY this would do the job:

xcopy mydir temp\mydir /s /i

If mydir is missing below temp it will be created as a directory ( /i ). /s copies subdirectories

You might want to mix any of the parameters xcopy offers, for example /e , /k - but this depends on what exactly you need to do besides copying the directory structure and files.

Using temp\\mydir as the target will work for robocopy too:

robocopy /mir /create mydir temp\mydir

Tried both commands here and they worked for me.

Answer 2

xcopy DIRSOURCE DIRDESTINATION /s /e /h

DIRSOURCE = the path to the directory being copied

DIRDESTINATION = the path to where you would like to copy DIRSOURCE

/s : Copies directories and subdirectories, unless they are empty

/e : Copies all subdirectories, even if they are empty

/h : Copies files with hidden and system file attributes