copy a whole folder (not just contents) into another folder in cmd terminal

Question

I would like to copy an entire folder to other folder. NOT JUST the content of that folder.
For that I would like to do it in the CMD terminal.

FolderOriging1

/---folderA
/---folderB
/---folderC

FolderDesteny

/---empty

Result that I like:

FolderDesteny
/---folderA

(with folderA including all the files and folders and subfolders)
I saw several posts here & here for instance
They all end up copying the contents of folder A, but not the folder itself.

for instance:

xcopy C:\folderA C:\folderB /E

this copies the contents of folder A to folder B

xcopy C:\folderA C:\folderB\folderA /E

Does not work neither

Other modifiers like the one pointed out in the above posted link do not work neither:

xcopy C:\folderA C:\folderB /E /i

Answer 1

The reason xcopy C:\\folderA C:\\folderB\\folderA /E does not work is because folderA does not exist in C:\\folderB . Which is evident from the directory structure in your question:

/folderA
/folderB
/folderC

You need to use the /I switch to create the directory if it does not exist. So your command should be:

xcopy C:\folderA C:\folderB\folderA /E /I

Note that Microsoft also advises to use the /O , /X , /H and /K switches with xcopy when you want to retain the folder's permissions. There effects follow:

/H - Copies hidden and system files also.
/K - Copies attributes. Typically, Xcopy resets read-only attributes.
/O - Copies file ownership and ACL information.
/X - Copies file audit settings (implies /O)

Source: HOW TO: Copy a Folder to Another Folder and Retain its Permissions

If you would like more information about copying a folder and its contents to another folder using xcopy and alternatives to using xcopy , then check out this Super User question: Commmand line command to copy entire directory (including directory folder) to another directory .

Answer 2

Try this:

echo d|xcopy /E "c:\folderA" "C:\folderB\folderA"

The d will serves as the interactive choice d for folder.

Or just

xcopy /E "c:\folderA" "C:\folderB\folderA\"