I would like to know how to copy a folder to another folder in a batch file.
I would like stuff with the same name to be overwritten.
Thanks.
Unless I'm missing something, the easiest way is with xcopy (provided you actually mean .bat files on Windows):
xcopy <SOURCE> <DEST> /e /d /y /h /r /c
To explain those flags:
/e: Include directories and sub directories even if empty
/d: Only copy files which have changed on SOURCE more recently than DEST
/y: Suppress prompts
/h: Also copy hidden and system files
/r: Override read-only files (e.g. ignore Read Only flag)
/c: Continue even if there are errors
Source: My standard backup script, been running every day for 6 years.
or take a look at ROBOCOPY en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robocopy
Related
Bear with me here; I'm super new to coding something like this, and I think I've found a simple way to do it, but I'm running into problems. I also couldn't really find an answer from Googling or looking around here, but if it's already been answered, I apologize!
I'm running the following command in a .bat file:
xcopy D:\SHARENAME \\NAS-IP-ADDRESS\SHARENAME /s /e /d
When I run it once as a .bat file, it does its copy operations, and then closes the terminal window, signaling completion. I can verify that a copy operation occurred, since new files do show up in the Backup directory.
However, once I set this .bat file as a Windows Scheduled Task, it never stops running. The copy still occurs one time, but the task does not end. I want it to run every day at 3AM, which is fine, but it never gets the chance to run after its first time, since it never actually stops. Am I missing something to close out this .bat file in order to stop it properly?
The scheduled task does not end because of XCOPY prompts on copying a file existing already in destination directory if it should be overwritten or not. This prompt is not answered by anybody and so XCOPY waits forever. So cmd.exe never ends the batch file execution and for that reason scheduled task also never ends.
The solution is using the command line:
%SystemRoot%\System32\xcopy.exe "D:\SHARENAME" "\\NAS-IP-ADDRESS\SHARENAME\" /C /E /H /K /Q /R /Y
Most important to fix this issue is the option /Y which avoids the overwrite prompt.
Microsoft's xcopy documentation contains currently the information:
By default, you are prompted to overwrite, unless you run xcopy from within a batch script.
This is a wrong information. XCOPY is an executable in system folder of Windows and does not know if being executed by cmd.exe from within a command prompt window or from within a batch script. /Y must be specified on command line or there is an environment variable COPYCMD containing /Y in value to avoid the overwrite prompt. /Y must not be used on command line on using copy being an internal command of cmd.exe on using COPY in a batch script.
The help of XCOPY output on running in a command prompt window xcopy /? explains all other options used above. At bottom of output help can be read:
The switch /Y may be present in the COPYCMD environment variable.
This may be overridden with /-Y on the command line.
The help of command COPY output on running copy /? ends with:
The switch /Y may be present in the COPYCMD environment variable.
This may be overridden with /-Y on the command line. Default is
to prompt on overwrites unless COPY command is being executed from
within a batch script.
The additional third sentence makes the difference regarding to /Y between XCOPY and COPY on usage from within a batch script.
The help of XCOPY contains also the explanation for /S and /E.
/S Copies directories and subdirectories except empty ones.
/E Copies directories and subdirectories, including empty ones.
Same as /S /E. May be used to modify /T.
Same as /S /E. is a confusing description. Many beginners think it is necessary to specify /S and /E to get entire directory structure with empty directories copied. But this is not true. It is meant that just /E is enough to copy an entire directory structure with including empty directories and /S /E is interpreted like just /E. It is superfluous to specify /S (copy without empty directories) in addition to /E (copy with empty directories) on XCOPY command line.
I recommend reading the SS64 - XCOPY documentation which is currently better than Microsoft's documentation.
Very important on copying one or more files and directories with XCOPY into a specified destination directory is specifying the destination path with a backslash at end. This makes it clear for XCOPY that the destination string specifies a directory and not a file. Otherwise it is necessary to specify additionally /I on copying multiple files or an entire directory tree to inform XCOPY that the destination argument should be interpreted as folder path. But /I does not avoid a prompt if a single file is copied with XCOPY and the destination argument does not end with a backslash, see BATCH file asks for file or folder for details. Therefore it is highly recommended to specify destination folder path always with a backslash at end on copying one or more files to a folder using XCOPY.
I want to use a batch file to synchronize 2 folders on Windows, and I'm using the xcopy command like this
xcopy /s /d <Original Folder> <Destination Folder>
It's working perfectly because I just want to overwrite only the modified ones, but I have 1 tiny problem, when I delete a file from the original folder, that file remains in the destination folder when i run the batch file, breaking the synching I want to achieve... I think this can't be done with xcopy, but I don't know which command I should use in case I delete a file in the original folder.
EDIT: This programs is for people who don't understant a lot of PC's so i don't want to install anything in their pc's. Just want a plain batch file to keep the 2 folders synchronized
SOLUTION: Thanks to Kuba Wyrostek I got to this command
robocopy <Original Folder> <Destination Folder> /e /purge
Thank you all for your time
xcopy has no such option. Your alternatives are:
rsync - http://rsync.samba.org
robocopy - http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc733145.aspx
To refine your answer, you can simply do:
robocopy <Original Folder> <Destination Folder> /mir
/mir mirrors a directory tree (equivalent to /e plus /purge).
The XCOPY command for copying the updates from one folder to another is as follows:
C:\> XCOPY C:/SOURCE D:/DESTINATION /E /D /C /Y
The flags used in the above example have the following meanings:
/E causes all folders and sub-folders to be copied
/D causes a DATE comparison to be made, only copying items that are newer than the DESTINATION item. If the DESTINATION is older, or does not contain the file, then it will be copied.
/C tells XCOPY to continue if it encounters an error - typically errors occur with read-only files, or files that have protected permissions
/Y tells XCOPY to suppress prompting you for confirmation, which is necessary if you intend to create an automation script or scheduled task
I know this is old, but I have a question. Can this not be done with the correct xcopy commands.
Folder 1: c:\workingFolder\"contents here"
Folder 2: d:\workingFolderSync\"contents here"
Batch file below
xcopy "c:\workingFolder\*.*" "d:\workingFolderSync\" /i /s /d /y
xcopy "d:\workingFolderSync\*.*" "c:\workingFolder\" /i /s /d /y
pause
( I usually remove the pause after i test and know the batch works. )
But this will only copy contents from the folder to the other if its newer.
Then it looks in the destination folder and copies contents from destination back to source if it is newer. This reproduces what syncing does, except for the in real time monitoring of modified files. Creating a proper task schedule can actually implement running this command at specific times to almost perfectly reproduce syncing. You can also run this before modification on a machine and after modification on a machine. Even doing the same thing on a second machine if your using a network drive to sync.
Your method will have two main problems:
Files deleted from one folder will be reinstated by the copy left in the other folder the next time you run your xcopy
Renaming files can cause chaotic results.
I have a strange problem with xcopy in Windows XP Professional. I don't know if its a stupid question as I am specifying only a file as the source, so should I even expect any other behavior ? This is it:
I am using xcopy <src> <dest> /s/y.
<src>=C:\sourcefolder\a\b\c\d\something.java and
<dest>=C:\destinationfolder.
Now xcopy copies the file but does not create the directory structure \a\b\c\d\ inside C:\destinationfolder .
what I want is C:\destinationfolder\a\b\c\d\something.java and
what I get is C:\destinationfolder\something.java
I have tried to run it in destination folder C:\destinationfolder by specifying a . for target folder
Tried it without any target in above
There is a script I have which calls xcopy iteratively so I am left with C:\destinationfolder\many java files without any directory structure.
A. Yes I have done xcopy /? to see all options
B. /T also does not create any empty directory structure
C. I can not go to source folder a\b\c\d\ and run xcopy . <dest>
UPDATE
I removed my previous answer on using ROBOCOPY. I believe the following will do what you want using XCOPY.
Assuming your folder structure is like this:
SOURCE = C:\MyJavaStuff\A\B\C\D\something.java
DEST = C:\MyDestination
Run XCOPY like this:
XCOPY C:\MyJavaStuff\something*.java C:\MyDestination /S /E
Note the * in something*.java.
The problem is that you are specifying which file to copy in the source. xcopy won't create the folder structure in this case. However, if you change your call to xcopy to
xcopy *.java C:\myfolder /s/y
it will copy the .java files and the folder structure as well. You need to specify a wildcard for this call to work as you want. If you want only to copy specific files, you will have to adjust the call to xopy, e.g.:
xcopy something.jav* C:\myfolder /s/y
Edit
You say that you get the list of files to copy from another command. If you can output this list of files in a text file, you could do the following:
FOR /F "tokens=* delims=," %F in (d:\test\list.txt) DO xcopy src\%~nxF* .\dest /S /Y
What this command does is read a text file ("d:\test\list.txt" in this case), read every line, and for each file, run xcopy, adding a wildcard at the end of the file name to make sure it creates the folder structure.
I'm assuming here that:
You can get the list of files in a text file, with only the file names (and optinally the paths)
You know the source folder ("C:\sourcefolder" in your example, the folder structure "a\b\c\d" does not need to be known) and can use it in the FOR command.
You can also use the following form:
FOR /F "tokens=* delims=," %F in ('cmd') DO xcopy src\%~nxF* .\dest /S /Y
where cmd needs to be replace with the command you use to generate your list of files to copy.
Note that if you use this FOR command in a batch file, you need to replace %F with %%F (and %~nxF* with %%~nxF*).
I had a look at the xcopy switches and you can copy the directory structure with /T, although that doesn't copy empty directories you can override this with /E. So your command would look like this:
xcopy C:\sourcefolder\a\b\c\d\something.java C:\destinationfolder /T /E /S /Y
Hope this helps!
In order to get C:\destinationfolder\a\b\c\d\something.java XCOPY needs to know how much of C:\sourcefolder\a\b\c\d\something.java to duplicate.
You can use:
C:
cd \sourcefolder
XCOPY something.java* C:\destinationfolder\ /S
Just be aware that this may have the side effect of also copying C:\sourcefolder\oops\something.java to C:\destinationfolder\oops\something.java as well as any other matches for something*.java under C:\sourcefolder\.
It seems to me that xcopy is typically used for copying directory trees, not single files (though it can work). And, xcopy will recreate the directory structure under the source folder in the target folder. If xcopy is given the /i switch, the target folder is assumed to be a directory. It will be created if it does not exist, even if there are multiple parents that need to be created.
You have C:\MyJavaStuff\A\B\C\D\something.java - that is your source. You want to end up with something.java not in C:\destinationfolder, but in C:\destinationfolder\A\B\C\D - so that is your target. You don't even have C:\destinationfolder. That is OK, with /i the entire path will be created.
xcopy /i c:\MyJavaStuff\A\B\C\D\something.java C:\destinationfolder\A\B\C\D
If something.java were the only file under C:\MyJavaStuff, you could also use
xcopy /sei c:\MyJavaStuff C:\destinationfolder
That would recreate the entire tree structure, copying your file. But if there are other files (and folders) under MyJavaStuff they would also be copied.
I have written a very similar batch file using xcopy. Perhaps what I did will help you.
This is the command I used:
xcopy "c:\Data Files\Dave's Data\*.*" "m:\Dave's Data" /R/D /E/H
In this case, Dave's Data on the source contains an entire directory tree containing at least 50,000 files & exceeding 75GB data. It runs perfectly on Windows XP
I found /T was unnecessary as the directory tree is copied. I also found /S was unnecessary as /E copied directories & sub-directories including empty ones. I included /R to copy & overwrite read only files on the destination. /H copied hidden directories. /D copied only newer files. I use this as a daily backup tool for my data.
The only problem I have is while this command will work on Windows 7 the first time, it will not work on subsequent runs when the destination directory tree exists. I suspect this is due to a privilege issue as the xcopy command will work on subsequent runs on Windows 7 within a cmd.exe window.
Just wondering the best way to do this in a single batch file. I have a folder called C:\Program\Foo and I want to grab all the folders except for the testing folder inside of foo, and I want to xcopy into D:\ so in D:\ foo will be there but no test folder.
Is there a way I can loop through each folder and check for a certain name not to include?
using /Exclude would mean I would need an extra text file with "Testing" in it
I don't see why you could not create a temporary exclusion file (using a temporary folder, that is):
#ECHO OFF
FOR %%F IN ("%TEMP%\exclude.txt") DO SET tmpf=%%~sF
ECHO Testing>%tmpf%\exclude.txt
XCOPY source destination /EXCLUDE:%tmpf%\exclude.txt other options
Note: XCOPY does not recognise double quotes as path delimiters in the /EXCLUDE option and offers no alternative for specifying paths with spaces, which can be a problem on Windows XP systems. This limitation can be worked around by replacing the original path with its counterpart consisting only of short names. That is what the FOR loop in the above script does for the %TEMP% folder.
Can you use ROBOCOPY?
ROBOCOPY C:\Program\Foo D:\ * /E /XD Test
/E copies subfolders and files
/XD excludes directories
Use the EXCLUDE option and put your exclusions in that file. That will let you exclude entire directories.
http://www.pcreview.co.uk/forums/using-xcopy-backup-can-exclude-some-directories-t489674.html
xcopy "c:\document and settings" "i:\documents and settings\" /s /d /EXCLUDE:c:\a.txt
a.txt contains
\temp\
\temporary internet files\
You may need to use shorter DOS file names.
Hi I'm trying to use robocopy to copy a single file from my computer to another computer over the network. The file I'm going to copy is named setup.exe and the directory it rests in also has a directory called "setup". I only want to copy over the executable, so I tried applying a filter to the robocopy command at the end listing the filename. However, despite the filter, it ends up copying both the executable AND the directory. Apprently robocopy ignores the file extension???
Here is the format of my robocopy command:
robocopy c:\users\ben\desktop /E /Z \\BensRemote\c$\temp setup.exe
so the filter at the end should be preventing the setup directory from also being copied over but it isn't. What am I doing wrong? Is it the /E argument???
The /E argument is what causes the problem.
Drop the /E.
/E will copy over subdirectories, including empty ones. The filter you're applying, 'setup.exe', only refers to files, not folders.