Copy first N files from source directory to “serialized” destination directory using powershell

Question

Either Powershell or batch script will work. I want to distribute every N number of files from directory A to directory B1, B2, B3, etc.

Example: C:\\a (has 9 .jpg files) file1.jpg file2.jpg ... file9.jpg

then c:\\b1, C:\\b2, C:\\b3 should have 3 files each. it should create directories C:\\b* as well.

So far I came up with this code, works fine but copies ALL the files from directory A to directory B:

$sourceFolder = "C:\a"
$destinationFolder = "C:\b"
$maxItems = 9
Get-Childitem  $sourceFolder\*.jpg | ForEach-Object {Select-Object -First $maxItems | Robocopy $sourceFolder $destinationFolder /E /MOV}

Answer 1

This also works, will calculate how many new folders should be created.

$excludealreadycopieditems = @()
$sourcefolder = "C:\a"
$destinationFolder = "C:\b"
$maxitemsinfolder = 3
#Calculate how many folders should be created:
$folderstocreate = [math]::Ceiling((get-childitem $sourcefolder\*.jpg).count / $maxitemsinfolder)
#For loop for the proces
for ($i = 1; $i -lt $folderstocreate + 1; $i++)
     {
#Create the new folders:
New-Item -ItemType directory $destinationFolder$i
#Copy the items (if moving in stead of copy use Move-Item)
get-childitem $sourcefolder\*.jpg -Exclude $excludealreadycopieditems | sort-object name | select -First $maxitemsinfolder | Copy-Item -Destination $destinationFolder$i ;
#Exclude the already copied items:
$excludealreadycopieditems = $excludealreadycopieditems + (get-childitem $destinationFolder$i\*.jpg | select -ExpandProperty name)
     }

Answer 2

Something like this should do:

$cnt = 0
$i   = 1
Get-ChildItem "$sourceFolder\*.jpg" | % {
  if ($script:cnt -ge $maxItems) {
    $script:i++
    $script:cnt = 0
  }

  $dst = "$destinationFolder$script:i"
  if (-not (Test-Path -LiteralPath $dst)) {
    New-Item $dst -Type Directory | Out-Null
  }
  Copy-Item $_.FullName $dst

  $script:cnt++
}