Powershell: Moving named files to their corresponding folder

Question

enter image description here I have a folder which has a bunch of files named: WBF123456, WBF135464, etc. These files need to be moved to the corresponding folder. At the moment I am using the commandline to manually enter the numbers of each file so they get moved, using this code:

$files = $args[0]

mv O:\SCAN\SecSur\*$files.pdf O:\SPG\G*\*\*$files

How can I automate this process? It needs to identify the number in the filename, then move it to the folder containing the same number. Any help would be great. Thanks.

I need to get the files on the left, inside the corresponding folders on the right.

Answer 1

Maybe the below solution will help you. You should change $origin_path and $destination_path

    $origin_path= "C:\Users\geralexgr\Desktop\kati\files"
    $destination_path = "C:\Users\geralexgr\Desktop\kati\folders"
    Get-ChildItem $origin_path -Recurse -Include *.txt | ForEach-Object {
        $folder = [regex]::Matches($_.Name, "\d+(?!.*\d+)").value
        Move-Item $_.FullName $destination_path\$folder
    }

The example will place files under the folders that match the numeric regex.

After powershell execution file WBF12 gets inside 12 folder

Answer 2

Apparently the files to move are.pdf files, so what you can do is get a list of those files in the source folder and then loop over that list to create (if needed) the destination subfolder and move the file there.

Try:

$destinationRoot = 'O:\SPG\G\SomeWhere'  # enter the root folder destination path here

$filesToMove = Get-ChildItem -Path 'O:\SCAN\SecSur' -Filter '*.pdf' -File
foreach ($file in $filesToMove) {
    $numName = $file.BaseName -replace '\D+'  # leaving only the numbers
    # create the target path for the file
    $targetFolder = Join-Path -Path $destinationRoot -ChildPath $numName
    # create that subfolder if it does not already exist
    $null = New-Item -Path $targetFolder -ItemType Directory -Force
    # now, move the file
    $file | Move-Item -Destination $targetFolder
}