Using the FOR command to copy files listed in a text file

A coworker asked me for a script. Here’s the request:

… would want to copy all files on this list [an attached text document] to another location (doesn’t really matter where for now). All are currently located in \\server\share\folder. The path in the new location should begin with the part after “folder”…

In a nutshell, here is the high-level description of what the script must do:

Given a text file which provides a list of files, copy the files from a fixed source to a fixed destination, recreating the directory trees on the destination. A simple file copy won’t work because there may be files in the source folders which should not be copied.

Sample content of the text file is:

client\CD120\Samarai Legends\Drafts\drafts folder.txt
client\CD120\Samarai Legends\Inbox\Legends.doc
client\CD120\Bushido Warriors\Inbox\Warrior Code.doc

The solution to this is to make a simple batch file that parses the content of the text file, generating the appropriate xcopy command to copy the file. We’ll call the batch file xcopylist.bat; its one line of content is below. Change c:\temp\ to whatever path you want the files copied to. (I used c:\temp\ for testing.) Change \\server\share\folder to the root folder of the files to copy.

for /f "delims=" %%i in (filelist.txt) do echo D|xcopy "\\server\share\folder\%%i" "c:\temp\%%i" /i /z /y

Put the file list in the same directory as the batch file and name the file list filelist.txt. Then run the batch file and viola! You’ve got to love the for command, which lets you (among other things) parse text files and use the line-by-line output. Another trick in here is the output parser pipe, which allows us to automatically press the “D” key with each xcopy command.

Note: The batch file overwrites files in the destination automatically. To turn this off (have it prompt you), change /y to /y- in the batch file. However, if you’re using Windows NT 4.0, just delete the /y switch altogether – it’s only supported in Windows XP and Windows 2000.

0 thoughts on “Using the FOR command to copy files listed in a text file

  • Hello,

    I would like to implement your script to backup starred picasa photos, these are stored in a file named starlist.txt in the format:

    C:\Users\Joe\Pictures\Play\Journeys\New Years 08\IMG_1682.JPG
    C:\Users\Joe\Pictures\Play\Journeys\New Years 08\IMG_1683.JPG
    etc

    The problem being that your script uses the whole file path when duplicating the files, resulting in the following (unusable) address:

    C:\temp\C:\Users\Joe\Pictures\Play\Journeys\New Years 08\IMG_1682.JPG

    Is there a simple modification that can be made to the script which would remove the “C:\Users\Joe\Pictures” element from the created file path?

    Many thanks in advance for your assistance.

  • The simples thing is to make a copy of starlist.txt, do a search/replace removing all text c:\users\joe\pictures, and running the script against that.

    As far as I can remember (it’s been a while), there is no easy way to truncate or replace data in strings from within the Windows shell.

  • Many thanks for your fast response!

    I modified starlist.txt as you suggested, so that each line reads as follows:
    \Play\Journeys\Spain 05\Chris’s Photos\DSCN0319.JPG
    etc

    This duplicated the files successfully, but put each individual image into a folder with the image name, within the correct folder structure e.g:
    D:\Starred Photos\Play\Journeys\Spain 05\Chris’s Photos\DSCN0319.JPG\DSCN0319.JPG

    I am using the following command:
    for /f “delims=” %%i in (starlist.txt) do echo D|xcopy “C:\Users\Joe\Pictures%%i” “D:\Starred Photos\%%i” /i /z /y

    Do you have any suggestions on why the folder is being created?

    • Modify the following excerpt of code:
      echo D|xcopy

      To the following:
      echo F|xcopy

      XCOPY prompts the user to either copy F, file, or D, directory. When changed from D to F, the batch script was able to successfully copy only the photos files to the directory, without placing each photo in a self named directory.

  • Only thing I can think to try is adding a backslash after the folder “Pictures” in the path “C:\Users\Joe\Pictures%%i” (that is, make it “C:\Users\Joe\Pictures\%%i”

  • Hi Brian, this script is very useful, i apreciate to much if you can help me to modify
    a little this script.
    I´ve a filename.txt file with the names of the files something like these

    text.txt
    text.txt
    text.txt

    etc…

    But the really I need is copy the files with your relative path to another folder

    thanks and regards

    MM

  • Not 100% sure what you need… You mention a relative path — relative to what?

    Something you can do to help explain may be to give an example of one line in the text file, and an example of how the script would use that line. For example, if one line was this:

    test.txt

    … and you wanted to generate this:

    copy test.txt c:\files\test.txt

    … the script would be:

    for /f “delims=” %%i in (filelist.txt) do copy “%%i” “c:\files\%%i”

    Give me an illustrative example and I’ll help if I can.

  • Hi Brian,

    Supose that I got a file “filelist.txt” with this content

    test.txt
    test1.txt
    test2.txt

    ….etc

    but these files (test.txt, test1.txt, etc…) are in a differents folders, something like that

    c:\Temp\test\test.txt
    c:\Temp\test1\test1.txt
    c:\Temp\test2\test2.txt

    I need copy all of the contents in the “Temp” folder, to another folder “Final”, but including the same folder structure of the “Temp” folder, see below

    c:\Final\ \\this folder are empty at first

    This is that i will to result after execute the batch file

    c:\Final\test\test.txt
    c:\Final\test1\test1.txt
    c:\Final\test2\test2.txt

    But I only have the filelist.txt, this file dont have the relative paths of the files

    Ps sorry for my enligish

    Thanks and regards

    MM

  • So it sounds like you want to copy only those files whose names are in the given file list. The easiest way I can think of is by doing this:

    for /f "delims=" %%i in (filelist.txt) do xcopy "c:\Temp\%%i?" "c:\Final" /i /z /y /s

    The two key changes are the question mark at the end of the first path in the xcopy command, and the /s switch.

    By adding a question mark to the end of the first path, you allow xcopy to look for “all files that match the pattern”. Of course, this means that test1.txt and test1.txtt would both match, but since it’s unlikely you have files with more than three characters in the extension, this should be fine.

    The /s switch tells xcopy to search all subdirectories of the source directory for matching files, and copy them to the destination with the same folder hierarchy.

    To test it out, run the following:

    xcopy c:\windows\*.log c:\temp /i /z /y /s

    This will copy every *.log file from the Windows directory to your c:\temp directory. This will result in operations like the following:

    C:\windows\WindowsUpdate.log
    C:\windows\Debug\blastcln.log
    C:\windows\Debug\UserMode\userenv.log
    C:\windows\Logs\DirectX.log
    C:\windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727\ngen.log

    In the temp directory, you’d have this:

    C:\temp\WindowsUpdate.log
    C:\temp\Debug\blastcln.log
    C:\temp\Debug\UserMode\userenv.log
    C:\temp\Logs\DirectX.log
    C:\temp\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727\ngen.log

    Viola!

  • Hi Brian, thanks for your help. The script its working ok…I´ve an error in the
    sintaxis of the xcopy command…but now is everything OK

    Regards

  • Hi Brian, a need your help one more time

    Supose that I got a file “filelist.txt” with this content (names without extensions)

    test
    test1
    test2
    test3
    test4

    ….etc

    I have a folder with a lot of files named like this form (test.txt, test.xls, test.doc, etc…) see example below

    c:\Temp\test.txt
    \test.xls
    \test.doc
    \test1.txt
    \test1.xls
    \test1.doc
    .
    .
    .

    etc.

    I need copy all of the contents in the “Temp” folder, to another folder “Final”, with subfolders named like
    the name of files and including the files with same name inside of the several folder see below

    c:\Final\ \\this folder are empty at first or don´t exist at first

    This is that i will to result after execute the batch file

    c:\Final\test\test.txt
    \test.xls
    \test.doc

    c:\Final\test1\test1.txt
    \test1.xls
    \test1.doc

    c:\Final\test2\test2.txt
    \test2.xls
    \test3.doc

    Ps sorry for my enligish, I hope I had explained correctly

    Thanks and regards

    MM

  • Manuel,

    I’d love to help out, but your requests are getting very specialized, and getting close to consulting services. I’ll try to point you in the right direction…

    First, you’re going to need to a combination of a FOR loop to parse the filenames in the text file. Next, you need to create the directory, then copy files to it.

    Try creating a batch file with this:

    for /f "delims=" %%i in (filelist.txt) do (
    md c:\Final\%%i
    xcopy c:\temp\%%i.* c:\Final\%%i /i /z /y /s
    )

    I didn’t test that but it looks right. 🙂

    If you need further services, you can consider hiring me as a consultant. 😀

    • Hello Brian,
      If i want to move/cut the files and not copy, what command should i use.
      PS. i tried, “move” but didn’t work.

      Thanks,
      Ren

  • I appear to be having the same issue as Joe.

    Before running this in my live environment, I decided to test it first.

    My bat file states:
    for /f “delims=” %%I in (test.txt) do echo D| xcopy “C:\Documents and Settings\e1000721\Desktop\New\%%I” “C:\Copy\%%I”

    My test.txt file states
    Level\test\File1.txt
    Level\test\File2.txt
    test\File3.txt
    test\File4.txt

    And it does copy over fine, only when it finishes, the file structure appears as
    C:\Copy\Level\test\File1.txt\File2.txt
    C:\Copy\Level\test\File2.txt\File2.txt
    C:\Copy\test\File3.txt\File3.txt
    C:\Copy\test\File4.txt\File4.txt

    Any thoughts on how I can get it to not make the last subfolder the name of the file?

    Thanks.

  • Try replacing xcopy with a regular copy command — it might do the trick. (For some reason xcopy is defaulting to behavior assuming that the destination is a directory, not a file. Usually this only happens when the /I switch is present.)

  • Tried copy and it just bombed out. I then put a pause at the end of the batch file so I could see exactly what it was doing. The issue with the xcopy wound up being that it was set for Directory instead of File so I changed D| to F| before the xcopy thus making the script:

    for /f “delims=” %%I in (test.txt) do echo F| xcopy “C:\Documents and Settings\e1000721\Desktop\New\%%I” “C:\Copy\%%I”

    Thanks again for the great help.

  • Thanks Brian! This was exactly what I was trying to do. Years ago I did a lot with DOS batch files and now I can not remember how to do it since dragging and dropping everything.
    I modified your example a bit to create a text file listing files, which were not found.

  • Brian,

    You are a genius! I have been trying to do this all night without success and am glad that I found this site. Thank you!!!

    Keep up the good work.

    David

  • Hi,

    How I have a problem, the filelist.txt that i’ve created constains different locations (server locations),
    \\server1\temp1
    \\server2\temp2
    \\server3\temp3
    Can this be done using your batch file?

    thanks,

  • If your filelist.txt has the full path to the files, you need to do two things:

    1. Remove any path prefix to the source parameter of the xcopy command.
    2. Remove the first slash in the UNC path in the destination parameter of the xcopy command.

    Fortunately the command shell in Windows allows you to specify a substring of characters from a variable (called string indexing, see http://www.dostips.com/DtTipsStringManipulation.php). If the variable %i was your full UNC path, and you want to drop the first character (so you don’t have a double-slash in your path), you can specify %i:~1 — the :~1 says “start from the second character” (strings are zero-indexed, so the first character is at position 0, the second at position 1, etc.).

    Your command line can then be:

    for /f “delims=” %%i in (filelist.txt) do ( set fil=%%i
    echo D|xcopy “%%i” “c:\temp\%fil:~1%” /i /z /y )

    You have to set a temporary variable (“fil” in the above), since as far as I can tell string indexing doesn’t work with the %%i for loop variable.

  • Nice problem and solution. Can a scripting langugage such as biterscripting make the task easy ? Here is a script.

    # Script CopyFiles.txt
    var str src, dest, list, file
    cat “/path/to/list file.txt” > $list
    lex “1” $list > $file
    while ($file “”)
    do
    system copy (“\””+$src+”/”+$file) (“\””+$dest+”/”+$file)
    lex “1” $list > $file
    done

    This script is in biterscripting ( http://www.biterscripting.com ). Save the script in file C:/Scripts/CopyFiles.txt. Call the script using the following command.

    script “C:/Scripts/CopyFiles.txt” src(“/path/to/source folder”) dest(“/path/to/destination folder”)

  • Thank you very much for such a useful script, i’ve been looking for it for 2 days, but i have a problem

    in my filelist.txt i have listed a lot of files with special characters, like á é í ó ú so it keeps telling

    me file not found because it cannot read any of those characters, is there any way to fix this problem?

    i really need to get over this, i have like 10 files listing me 200 files each one, it would take me

    years to do it manually :S

  • Hi Brian,
    I need ur help very urgently.

    I have a text file which contains list of folders and files I want to copy to another location. Those folders r in different drives like C: and D:.
    My text file content gos something like this.
    C:\Folder1
    D:\Test2
    C:\mytext.txt

    Can u please give me the script that copies these folders along with their subfolders and contents to another location??

    I have tried many. One of those is :
    for /f “delims=” %i in (D:\includelist.txt) do xcopy “%i\” “U:\BACKUP\” /i /z /y /s /e

  • First, I would specify U:\BACKUP\%i
    Second, if you are running the script from the command line, you need to double the percent signs.
    Third, if some of the source files are folders, and some are files, you need to be careful with your backslashes.
    Fourth, what error are you getting?

    Try this:
    for /f “delims=” %%i in (D:\includelist.txt) do xcopy “%%i” “U:\BACKUP\%%i” /i /z /y /s /e

    • The script that u mentioned copies only subfolders. My includelist is something like this :
      D:\Sample\Test
      C:\NewFolder\Test1

      When i run the script it copies only Test and Test1 in U:\BackUp. The Entire folder structure is not created. Please help me with this.
      I tried the following : for /f “delims=” %i in (D:\includelist.txt) do echo D|xcopy “D:\%i” “U:\BACKUP\%i:~1%” /i /z /y. This works well.
      But this has D:\ in the source. I do not want that. I read the complete path in %%i.

  • Damian Stalls says:

    This is AWESOME!! But I am having a similar problem as Sony. My list.txt file contains the full source path (as there could be multiple drive sources). Is there a way to make the destination of the batch file ignore the drive letter for the destination?

    EXAMPLE OF FILELIST.TXT
    c:\users\damian.home\appdata\local\microsoft\outlook\damian@m.com.pst
    c:\users\damian.home\appdata\local\microsoft\outlook\MailStore Offline.pst

    BATCH FILE
    ———–
    for /f “delims=” %%i in (filelist.txt) do echo D|xcopy “%%i” “D:\PSTs\%%i” /i /z /y

    The source works fine but the destination tries to copy to “D:\PST\C:\USERS…”. Actually if the destination could just drop the “:” that would be PERFECT!

    • Damian Stalls says:

      Nevermind… i finally figured it out. The example you provided needed some extra quotes when setting the fil variable, and the substrings needed to be updated:

      for /f “delims=” %%i in (filelist.txt) do ( set “fil=%%i”
      echo D|xcopy “%%i” “D:\DESTINATION\%fil:~0,1%%fil:~2%” /i /z /y )

      This copy the source file as follows:
      C:\Folder1\file.nam –> D:\DESTINATION\C\Folder1\file.nam
      E:\Folder3\file1.nam –> D:\DESTINATION\E\Folder3\file1.nam

      YEAH!

      • Heyy Damian,

        I tried ur script. But it doesnt work. it created a folder named “~0,1%fil” in U:\Backup. It copied only 2 files from the entire folder.

        I just need to truncate the drive D:\ name from destination path. Can u please look into that?

  • Damian Stalls says:

    Spoke too soon… if you execute the batch file from a command line it works. If you double click on the batch file it does not! Any ideas?

  • Hey Brian,

    Thanks for such amazing information!

    I want to create the scenario Manuel was asking about:

    Some files are in multiple SubDirectories and I have the file names in a text file (file1.pdf file2.pdf file3.pdf)

    I want all locations of the same file recreated when applicable.

    Ex:

    e:\SourceFolder\SubDir1\SubDir1A\file1.pdf
    e:\SourceFolder\SubDir2\SubDir2A\file2.pdf
    e:\SourceFolder\SibDir3\SubDir3A\file3.pdf
    e:\SourceFolder\SubDir4\SubDir4A\file3.pdf

    becomes

    e:\DestFolder\SubDir1\SubDir1A\file1.pdf
    e:\DestFolder\SubDir2\SubDir2A\file2.pdf
    e:\DestFolder\SibDir3\SubDir3A\file3.pdf
    e:\DestFolder\SubDir4\SubDir4A\file3.pdf

    …Where file3.pdf was found in two locations and placed in both trees.

    So far, I keep getting a directory created with the file name like follows:

    e:\DestFolder\file1.pdf\SubDir1\SubDir1A\file1.pdf
    e:\DestFolder\file2.pdf\SubDir2\SubDir2A\file2.pdf
    e:\DestFolder\file3.pdf\SibDir3\SubDir3A\file3.pdf
    e:\DestFolder\file3.pdf\SubDir4\SubDir4A\file3.pdf

    …Where fileX.pdf folders are created and file3.pdf is in its appropriate tree but both under a file3.pdf subdirectory and

    I’ve tried:

    do echo D|xcopy
    do echo F|xcopy
    do xcopy

    and I’m not getting the result I want yet.

    I hope that all makes sense : )

    Any thoughts?

    Thanks, Brian!

  • set src_folder=C:\Users\Vinny\Desktop\Scorpio\Catalog 2013
    set dst_folder=C:\Users\Vinny\Desktop\Scorpio\Catalog 2013\catalogimages\
    for /f “delims=” %%i in (filelist.txt) do echo D|xcopy “C:\Users\Vinny\Desktop\Scorpio\Catalog 2013\%%i” “C:\Users\Vinny\Desktop\Scorpio\Catalog 2013\catalogimages\%%i” /i /z /y

    i am using this and its putting the images into folders inside the catalog images folder i cannot figure out why. someone had this issue further up but didnt reply with his fix.

  • You for command looks fine (and the set command aren’t needed as you are not using the variables you are setting).

    I just tried this by doing the following:

    Batch file:
    for /f “delims=” %%i in (c:\temp\filelist.txt) do echo D|xcopy “C:\temp\%%i” “C:\temp\output\%%i” /i /z /y

    FileList.txt file:
    restoredb.bat
    restoredb.sql

    The result was the restoredb.bat and restoredb.sql files, both of which originally existed in the source folder (c:\temp), were copied to the destination folder (c:\temp\output).

  • ok i dont know anything about this stuff. so i guess i have to find a completely new way to do this because this command is not working. i cant have all of them moved into there own folders and thats whats happening.

  • for /f “delims=” %%i in (filelist.txt) do echo D|xcopy “C:\Users\Vinny\Desktop\Scorpio\Catalog 2013\%%i” “C:\Users\Vinny\Desktop\Scorpio\Catalog 2013\catalogimages” /i /z /y

    thats what did the trick

  • Hello,
    My filelist.txt has a list of files that are seperated into sections.

    filelist.txt e.g.
    Section 1
    file1
    file2
    file3

    section 2
    file4
    file5
    file6

    Is there a way to only copy the files in section 2?

    this is the command I am using but it copies all the files in listed in filelist.txt

    for /f “delims=” %%i in (filelist.txt) do echo D|xcopy “C:\test\%%i” “C:\test2” /i /z /y
    Pls can you help?

  • What if I just want to copy the files in the filelist.txt source into a single destination directory, ignoring what subfolders they originated in?

  • Hi Brian,

    Can you please guide me for the below query –

    I want to move files from one folder location to a temp location with conditions as below
    1) All the files lesses than sysdate
    2. After files are copied to temp location it should be zipped.
    3. Again I have to copy these zip file to a different location and than unzip it.

    Please help … Appreciate ur swift response!

    Regards!

  • Hi Brain,

    Are you getting payed for all this work?
    I just read through the whole tread, and it seems you are the only contributer to actual solutions…..

    What I read is very usfull, but I can’t figure out how to seach the files from the list in subfolders.
    Is this even possible?

    I used this:

    For /f “delims=” %%i in (filelist.txt) do xcopy “c:\Temp\%%i?” “c:\Final” /i /z /y /s

    and it woorks great if all files are located in c:\temp\

    But the files I am looking for is in subfolders to c:\temp\

    Hope you yet again can come with a solution 🙂

    Best regards

  • Hello, Brian!
    1. I’m beginner. Though cases discussed on your site are very similar to that what I need, still I can’t get the solution.
    2. My case:
    2.1. I have a folder C:\temp with, say, 3 Excel files Name1.xlsx, Name2.xlsx, Name3.xlsx
    2.2. I have FileList.txt file in C:\temp folder. File contains:
    Name2.xlsx
    Name3.xlsx
    2.3. I need to move files Name2.xlsx and Name3.xlsx, as defined in FileList.txt, from the folder C:\temp into the folder C:\temp\new

    PS. An advantage of vehicle with manual gear compare to the one with automatic is that in case of manual gear I can start the engine from the push. I am looking you to push me. Thank You.

  • Use the same command line, just change the source path and use MOVE instead of XCOPY.

    for /f “delims=” %i in (filelist.txt) do move /y “c:\temp\%i” “c:\temp\new\%i”

    Important note — if you put this in a batch file, you need to use %%i; if you run it directly from a command prompt, you use %i.

  • This batch file:
    for /f “delims=” %%i in (C:\temp_ad\filelist.txt) do echo D|xcopy “C:\temp_ad\%%i” “C:\temp_ad\output\%%i” /i /z /y

    works neither in Win XP nor WINDOWS 7. Folder \output\ remains empty.
    Batch file resides in temp_ad folder.
    filelist.txt looks as follows:
    Name2.xlsx
    Name3.xlsx
    Hope on your help.
    Thanks.

  • What is the output when you run just this from the console (not a batch file)?

    for /f "delims=" %i in (C:\temp_ad\filelist.txt) do echo xcopy "C:\temp_ad\%i" "C:\temp_ad\output\%i" /i /z /y

    Remember to make quotes normal quotes; I think WordPress is replacing them with curly quotes when the comment is posed.

  • The problem was the quotes: they were not normal.

    Here is working version.

    @ECHO OFF
    cd C:\temp_ad
    for /f “delims=” %%i in (filelist.txt) do move /y “C:\temp_ad\%%i” “C:\temp_ad\output\%%i”
    @ECHO OFF

    Brian, you gave me a push, thank You, though I am not sure how long my ‘engine’ will work, maybe I will need another push:) Thanks a lot.

    Another small question: is it possible to WinZip the files? I wrote batch to unzip it, but how to zip?
    Highly appreciate your help.
    Adeya
    Thank you.

  • @Adeya — funny you ask about zipping the files, I recently wrote a batch file to zip (using 7zip) a folder. Expect a blog post soon.

  • Hi Brian!

    i’m in need of a little help here please, been going round and round with this to no avail!! 🙁

    The goal of this batch is to copy files from a server to a local PC, scheduled to run every 30 minutes, to copy each project’s image folder and copy to a local PC.

    I have a set of text files, all with random names i.e. 154799.txt in a single folder, the contents of each file is a single line with a UNC path \\server_name\folder\user\jobname (each of these paths contain image files)
    I need to use the contents of each text file as a path for a robocopy command
    There is an unknown number of *.txt files each with random name, so this needs to run once for each ‘new’ textfile.

    I have this batch that generates a list of the filenames and outputs into a single text file called files_list.txt file

    for %%a in (*.txt) do echo %%a >> \\server_name\folder\user\file_list\files_list.txt

    for /F “tokens=*” %%g in (files_list.txt) DO @echo %%g

    That produces a file_list.txt with contents:
    154799.txt
    123456.txt
    254874.txt

    Where I’m stumped is getting the next batch to take each line of the files_list.txt as a source path

    for /f “delims=” %%i in (file_list.txt) do robocopy “%%i” c:\copy\server_footage\ /s /e

    Any help greatly appreciated! Thanks, Andy!

  • last line has a typo it should be files_list.txt not file_list.txt!
    for /f “delims=” %%i in (files_list.txt) do robocopy “%%i” c:\copy\server_footage\ /s /e
    😐

  • Two things that could be throwing you off:

    1. Use “delims= ” — that is, use a space as a delimiter. This solved a problem for me in eliminating white space at the end of the filename.

    2. You need three loops. Think of it this way:

    LOOP 1 — get the filename of all text files (*.txt) and put it in a new file (files_list.txt)
    LOOP 2 — go through files_list.txt, and for each line (i.e. each file, do LOOP 3
    LOOP 3 — called by loop 2, this reads each line in the file and does the robocopy

    Your LOOP2 and LOOP3 have to be in the same command, something like this:

    for /f “delims= ” %%i in (c:\temp\files_list.txt) do for /f “delims= ” %%j in (%i) do robocopy “%%j” c:\temp
    \destination\ /s /e

    Hope that helps!

    • Hi Brian,

      I have another change I would like to implement:
      Deleting the 154799.txt file if there is no new data (changes/updated/new files) within the source folder

      using the errorlevel check from Robocopy
      errorlevel 0 echo No Change & goto remove
      remove then deletes 154799.txt and all other *.txt files but I can’t seem to find a way to split this out of the original variable in Loop 3.
      It acts only on the last *.txt file it reads, so if there is no change to that, it deletes all *.txt, even if the preceding files had new or changed content.

      Section of script contains:

      call :REPORT_ERRORLEVEL
      goto :EOF

      :REPORT_ERRORLEVEL
      echo.

      if errorlevel 16 echo ***FATAL ERROR*** & goto end
      if errorlevel 15 echo OKCOPY + FAIL + MISMATCHES + XTRA & goto end
      if errorlevel 14 echo FAIL + MISMATCHES + XTRA & goto end
      if errorlevel 13 echo OKCOPY + FAIL + MISMATCHES & goto end
      if errorlevel 12 echo FAIL + MISMATCHES& goto end
      if errorlevel 11 echo OKCOPY + FAIL + XTRA & goto end
      if errorlevel 10 echo FAIL + XTRA & goto end
      if errorlevel 9 echo OKCOPY + FAIL & goto end
      if errorlevel 8 echo FAIL & goto end
      if errorlevel 7 echo OKCOPY + MISMATCHES + XTRA & goto end
      if errorlevel 6 echo MISMATCHES + XTRA & goto end
      if errorlevel 5 echo OKCOPY + MISMATCHES & goto end
      if errorlevel 4 echo MISMATCHES & goto end
      if errorlevel 3 echo OKCOPY + XTRA & goto end
      if errorlevel 2 echo XTRA & goto end
      if errorlevel 1 echo OKCOPY & goto end
      if errorlevel 0 echo No Change & goto remove

      :remove
      for /f %%a in (\\server_name\folder\copy_dir\file_list\job_list.txt) do del %%a
      :end

      Any suggestions please? Thanks!

  • Hello, Brian!

    By executing the batch I started to get prompt:
    “Does C:\temp_ad\output\test2.xlsx specify a file name or directory name on the target
    <F = file, D = directory)?"

    I think it started after MS Office 2013 was installed. My OS is WINDOWS 7.

    How to prevent this prompt or how to select 'F' automatically?

    Thank you.
    Adeya

  • for /f “delims=” %%i in (filelist.txt) do xcopy “C:\Test1\%%i” “C:\Test1\Test2\%%i”

    Batch file itself and filelist.txt are in Test1 folder along with files .xlsx that are copied from Test1 into Test2.
    Prompt forces to enter ‘F’ as many times as number of files to be copied.

    Thank you for your time.
    Adeya

  • Try using the XCOPY command line switches /I /Y.

    for /f “delims=” %%i in (filelist.txt) do xcopy “C:\Test1\%%i” “C:\Test1\Test2\%%i” /I /Y

  • Brian,

    xcopy switch /I says: “If destination does not exist and copying more than one file, assumes that destination must be a directory.”

    So, the prompt is displaying no matter destination exists or not, copying one file or more.

    xcopy switch /Y says: “Suppresses prompting to confirm you want to overwrite an existing destination file.”

    So, by first run switch /Y does not help: prompt requiring ‘F’ or ‘D’ is displayed.
    If files are already copied into destination file, then by the second run neither the prompt in question nor the confirmation overwriting prompt are displayed.

    I experimented with Win XP & MS Office 2007, Win XP & MS Office 2010, and Windows 7 & MS Office 2013. The behavior in all cases are the same: prompt is displayed.
    I was absolutely surprised to see it on my Win XP machines. Since April 30 (see my msg above) I was occupied with other assignments, I new that batch exists and did not try it until recently.
    I think this prompt is caused by some updates that change some security settings. I googled and people mention it, too.
    Maybe you can figure this out.
    Thank you.
    Adeya

  • If destination folder is created before batch execution, than prompt has preceding phrase:
    “A subdirectory or file Test2 already exists.” and further the known question ‘F’ or ‘D’.
    Thanks a lot.

  • Hi brian, great job.

    I have this issue, i wonder if you could help me out..

    I have several pdf files that i need to relocate, the list.txt has the directory names of the location of the pdf files.

    What i need is that the command use the list.txt where the locations of the files are…

    I apologize for my bad english… and thanks in advance

    list.txt

    folder1
    folder2
    folder321

    This coommand works for what i need to do

    for /R f:\temp\folder1 %f in (*.pdf) do copy %f F:\temp\folder1 /y

  • Hello, Brian!
    Googling brought the solution. Though this solution is not universal, but for my case it is the solution.
    If by copying the file name is not changing (what is my case), then there is no need to provide file name at destination (in my case %%i at the end of the destination path can be skipped) and “Does C:\… specify a file name or directory name on the target
    <F = file, D = directory)?" prompt will not displayed.
    So, my command will look as follows:
    for /f “delims=” %%i in (filelist.txt) do xcopy “C:\Test1\%%i” “C:\Test1\Test2\”
    Thank you.
    Adeya

  • @Marcos — if your list file has folders and not files, you can do something like this:

    for /f "delims=" %%i in (filelist.txt) do xcopy "%%i" "c:\temp\destination\" /s /i /z /y

    • Hi brian, thanks for the answer, perhaps, i failed on the explanation of my problem.

      I have several pdf files on subfolders, and I need to move these files to an upper level directory. for example

      I have
      c:\FolderA\SubfolderA\1.pdf
      c:\FolderA\SubfolderA\SubSubFolderA\2.pdf
      c:\FolderB\SubfolderB\3.pdf
      c:\FolderB\SubFolderB\SubSubfolderB\4.pdf

      And I need:
      C:\FolderA\1.pdf
      c:\FolderA\2.pdf
      c:\FolderB\3.pdf
      c:\FolderB\4.pdf

      I Have this list.txt where i have all the folders listed

      FolderA
      FolderB
      FolderC
      FolderD

      So long, i´ve managed that the script “reads” all directory but it wont copy

      If I do This

      for /R C:\FolderA %f in (*.pdf) do copy %f c:\FolderA\ /y

      The Result is what i Expect, al pdf files in c:\FolderA , and it’s subfolders copies to the directory c:\FolderA

      But if i do this

      for /f “delims=” %i in (list.txt) do echo D|for /R “c:\%i” %f in (*.pdf) do copy %f “c:\%i\” /y

      The script “reads” all directory but it wont copy any files

        • Hello Brian,

          Thanks for all these posts here. I have a similar problem I have a folder with all the files there and need to split them in different folders and subfolders

          So in the destination I want to create also the folders like:

          folder/subfolder/name_of_file.txt

          Can you please help me?

          Nikos

  • Alex David says:

    Sir,
    I have two logs called chknew.log and new.log
    chknew.log contains the source filepath as C:\ILProject\DateFormat.vb

    new.log contains the destination file path as C:\ILProject\BUILD_MANDATORY\DateFormat.vb

    I want to xcopy files in log please help

    • I’m assuming that each line in chknew.log (source) has a corresponding line in new.log (destination), so each row matches in each file… If that’s the case, let me think… you can loop through one file but not two files.

      This was a cool one, worthy of its own blog post… but in short:

      source.txt
      source1
      source2
      source3

      dest.txt
      dest1
      dest2
      dest3

      Batch file to copy files where the source is the value in source.txt and the destination is the value in dest.txt:

      @echo off
      setlocal ENABLEDELAYEDEXPANSION
      set /a line=0
      set dest=
      for /f %%i in (source.txt) do (
      call :getdest !line!
      set /a “line+=1”
      echo %%i, !dest!
      )
      endlocal
      goto :eof

      :getdest
      if “%1″==”0” (
      for /f %%j in (dest.txt) do (
      set dest=%%j
      exit /b
      )
      )
      for /f “skip=%1” %%j in (dest.txt) do (
      set dest=%%j
      exit /b
      )

  • I have two directory on my D Drive. D:\1 and D:\2 Directory 1 and 2 and subdirectories have a bunch of files .

    I need a batch script that will Read each file in Directory 1 and checks, if same file exists in Directory 2, it should avoid duplicates files. Move only those files which are not present in directories 2 to a different Directory C:\3 with the same folder sturcture.

    Thanks in advance

  • @Kal — I would recommend using a tool such as WinMerge, which can compare folders of files, show you what’s the same, different, and missing on one side or the other, and move them accordingly. It’s a great tool, and it’s free. http://winmerge.org/

  • Thanks Brian. I have already tried that!!! But no success as the folder structure are diff on both Directories. I required script that search for file in A and B folders and compare the filename if same file exist on both folder it should avoid it. If Unique file exist on Dir A it should copy the file with same folder structure of DirA to DirC.

    Thanks in advance.

  • Hi Brian;

    I am using below script for the above requirement, but no success.
    @echo off
    set d1=”D:\Login\*”
    set d2=”D:\LOGIN2\*”
    set dest=”D:\RESULT”
    for %%f in (%d1%\*) DO (
    if not exist %d2% move %%f %dest%
    )

    Thanks

  • Hi Brian,

    I want to delimit this statement $/MIGRATION_UAT/Integration/NSureIntegration/NSure_event1/dbutility/BIN/Interop.MSXML2.dll

    as \\172.21.24.34\c$\inetpub\wwwroot\NSureIntegration\NSure_event1\dbutility\BIN\Interop.MSXML2.dll
    using batch script

  • I have a list(“MissPDF.txt”) that contains path and file name like below:
    EDI 2011 – 1\184160184160594.pdf
    EDI 2011 – 3b\184497184497738.pdf
    EDI 2011 – 3b\184497184497739.pdf
    EDI 2011 – 3e – Copy\184473184473289.pdf

    I want to copy those files to this location:
    E:\PRGX\Data\MissedPDF

    I tried creating this line of code but it is not working for me, can you help?

    for /f “delims=” %%i in (MissPDF.txt) do echo D|xcopy “E:\PRGX\Data\Carrefour\%%i” “E:\PRGX\Data\MissedPDF\%%i” /i /z /y /s

    I put the bat file and misspdf.txt in this directory:
    E:\PRGX\Data\Carrefour

  • The text file has this data. There was a slash missing on my example earlier

    EDI 2011 – 1\184160184160594.pdf
    EDI 2011 – 2c\184307184307471.pdf
    EDI 2011 – 3b\184531184531849.pdf

  • There should be a slash after the 6th number in hte pdf file name. ie 184160 “\” 184160594. for some reason it disappears when I post this msg.

    EDI 2011 – 1\184160184160594.pdf
    should be:
    EDI 2011 – 1\184160 “\” 184160594.pdf (witohout the quotes and space)

  • When I copied your text into a sample file, the following from a command line works fine. I think you need to better explain what “it is not working for me” means.

    for /f “delims=” %i in (c:\temp\MissPDF.txt) do echo xcopy “e:\prgx\data\carrefour\%i” “e:\prgx\data\missedpdf\%i” /i /z /y /s

  • The files are not being copied I right click on my bat file and click open and it opens and closes right away…nothing happens. Could it be the spaces in the directory name “EDI 2011 – 1…” ?

  • This is the full path of the first file in my example (184160184160594.pdf)
    E:\PRGX\Data\Carrefour\EDI 2011 – 1\184160\184160\184160594.pdf

    The MissPDF.txt file has this on the first line:
    EDI 2011 – 1\184160\184160594.pdf

  • I found the issue. I had these double quotes (”) instead of (“). Once i changed it, it started working, kinda. Now I get an error msg for each file asking to specify if a file name or directory name on the target <F = file, D = Directory)? D 0 File(s) Copied

    what to do?

  • for /f “delims=” %%i in (MissPDF.txt) do echo D|xcopy “E:\PRGX\Data\Carrefour\%%i” “E:\PRGX\Data\MissedPDF\%%i” /I /Z /Y /S

    This worked. Just needed the \ at the end of the destination

  • You have backslashes in the file names in your text file. This will cause problems with file copies, as Windows will think it’s a directory path. Try replacing the slashes with a valid character (dash or space).

  • ok..started over and I put all my pdf’s in 1 folder (E:\PRGX\Data\Miss2Left)
    I have a text file called Miss2.txt which has the file names in it
    ie
    0184155473.pdf
    0184155930.pdf
    0184155931.pdf
    0184155932.pdf
    0184155933.pdf

    I want to copy the files from Miss2Left folder that exist in the text file to this folder (E:\PRGX\Data\Miss3Left). I have this command that works but that creates a folder with the filename and then the file inside that folder:

    for /f “delims=” %%i in (Miss2.txt) do echo D|xcopy “E:\PRGX\Data\Miss2Left\%%i” “E:\PRGX\Data\Miss3Left\%%i” /i /z /y

    What am I missing?

  • I got it to work but it is going very slow. I am putting it into an “ALL” folder. There are about a million pdf files and about 120,000 file names in Miss2.txt file. It is copying about 10 files a minute.

    for /f “delims=” %%i in (Miss2.txt) do echo D|xcopy “E:\PRGX\Data\Miss2Left\%%i” “E:\PRGX\Data\Miss3Left\%i:All%” /i /z /y

    I was experimenting with this below. Would something like this go faster? If so, what would i need to edit below? It is not copying the files.

    for /f “tokens=*” %%A in (Miss3Path.txt) DO (If Exist %%A* (XCOPY “%%A\*.pdf” “E:\PRGX\Data\Miss4Left” /D /K /Y /R ) )

  • FYI…the Miss3path.txt file has this data in it:
    E:\PRGX\Data\Miss2Left184155473.pdf
    E:\PRGX\Data\Miss2Left184155930.pdf
    E:\PRGX\Data\Miss2Left184155931.pdf
    E:\PRGX\Data\Miss2Left184155932.pdf
    E:\PRGX\Data\Miss2Left184155933.pdf

  • Do you have “about a million pdf files” all in the same folder in the source? If so, I’d say that is part of your problem. I’ve seen Windows have problems with folders of 10,000 or more files. A million is a LOT of files, much less all in the same directory.

  • Why am I getting the error?

    for /f “delims=” %%i in (filelist.txt) do copy “%%i” “”c:\folder1\%%i”
    ” was unexpected at this time.

  • As an extension, how would you go about copying a group of files listed in “FILEPATH_FROM.CSV” to the location in the corresponding “FILEPATH_TO.CSV”? e.g the ith line of both files correspond to the from and to arguments of xcopy respectively.

  • Using the FOR command to delete files listed in a text file from a specific directory?

    for /f “delims=” %%i in (imagelist.txt) do echo D|del “\\c:\imagestore\%%i” /i

    nothing happens, help?

  • You can use the following command in case you are stuck with folders getting created with file name:
    for /f “delims=” %%i in (filelist.txt) do echo F|xcopy “\\server\share\folder\%%i” “c:\temp\%%i” /i /z /y

    the key here is to tell cmd that destination is a file instead of a directory.

  • Hello Brian,

    I have a folder with files that I do need to copy to multiple folders and subfolders. The folders and subfolders are not created but have them in txt list together with the name of the specific file.

    For example I want to move

    test1.txt to folder1/subfolder1 test2.doc to folder1/subfolder2 test3.txt to folder2/subfolder1 …………..
    • test1.txt to folder1/subfolder1
    • test2.doc to folder1/subfolder2
    • test3.txt to folder2/subfolder1

    Can I do it in from command line copying the files and creating the folders at same time if I have each destination path in a text list?

  • I have a folder with files that I do need to copy in multiple folders and subfolders. The folders and subfolders are not created.

    For example I want to move

    • test1.txt to folder1/subfolder1
    • test2.doc to folder1/subfolder2
    • test3.txt to folder2/subfolder1

    Can I do it in from command line copying the files and creating the folders at same time if I have each destination path in a text list?

  • Hello Brian.

    I am very new to this forum and process. I am trying to create a batch file that will move employee files into it’s own employee folder. For example…

    move from – O:\Payroll\Exempt Time Off\2014\1 Extract\Andersen Julie -TAFW 07.31.14 19.pdf
    move to – O:\Payroll\Exempt Time Off\2014\Andersen Julie

    Is there a way to do this, as it is for multiple employees?

    Thanks for kindly.

  • the first *.tif file is being dropped and not copied to new folder? Does anyone know why?

    for /f “delims=” %%i in (CD200.txt) do echo f|xcopy “X:\oldCDFolder\CD200\%%i” “X:\newCDfolder\CD200\%%i” /i /z/y/f

    CD200.txt contains:
    C0045971.tif
    C0045972.tif
    C0045973.tif
    C0045974.tif
    C0045975.tif
    C0045976.tif
    C0045977.tif
    C0045978.tif
    C0045979.tif
    C0045980.tif
    C0045981.tif
    C0045982.tif
    C0045983.tif
    C0045984.tif
    C0045985.tif

  • Brian,

    Thanks so much for this. I realize it is an old post but I have a question regarding my results. Here is what I’m running:

    for /f “delims=” %%I in (TEST.txt) do echo F| xcopy “Source\%%I” “Destination\%%I”

    I ran 28,000 files from various folders/levels of folders and it worked great (27990 files copied)! However, about 50 seemingly random files do not get moved and result in a “0 File(s) copied” message.

    I can see nothing odd about the files that are not getting copied. For example, one folder contains 100 .tif images, all filenames are numbers in ascending order. Only 2 of the images were copied. If I alter my TEST.txt and only run a subset of those 100 through (10 say), DIFFERENT images get copied/don’t get copied.

    Any reason it’s randomly not copying certain files? If not, no worries and thanks for the batch file!

  • Hi Brain

    I have used this script to copy files , but found some files got skipped , is it possible to create an log of skipped files.

  • Hi guys,

    i’m sorry for my english.
    how can i edit the file batch so that it gives me a final result??
    For example, i have this list with 250 files and i want to know, in a new txt file if some of this aren’t copied.

    thanks to all

  • Hi Brian,
    I need to copy the content of muiltiple files in one file
    e.g file1.txt+file2.txt+file3.txt to filex.txt

    I use the copy command to do that, but the beginning content of file2 is being copy on the same end of line of file1.txt and file3 being copy the end of file2.txt
    There is an overlapping at the end of each file.
    All i need is the all the 3 files to be copied into one file named filesx.txt

    Thanking you in advance for your support

    Ashik

  • @Ashik — sounds like you need to add a line break between files.

    Create a file, break.txt, with its only content being a blank line (i.e. open notepad, press enter, save file). Copy this file between the other file copies when appending files together and it will ensure a line break between files.

  • Hi Brain,

    No sure if you can help, I’m trying to write a copy script that will search multiple directories on a network share for specific file names that are listed in a text file, then move them into a new folder, doesn’t need to keep folder structure in destination folder. I want to dump it all in one folder

    ex.

    mytextfile.txt

    abc
    abcd
    abcde
    etc.
    etc.

    Thanks For any info you cna provide

  • So this is what I have, but it doesn’t seem to even search sub-directories for the files so my output is,
    The system cannot find the file specified.
    0 file(s) copied.

    I know the files are there just within sub-folders

    for /f “delims=” %%i in (filelist.txt) do (
    copy /y “F:\network_sahre\%%i*” “F:\network_share\Temp”
    )
    PAUSE

  • Brian, You have got me on the right path. However, I’d like to delete the source files after they have been copied leaving the source folders intact because they have other files in them. Thanks

    Your code I used.

    for /f “delims=” %%i in (list.txt) do xcopy “C:\Users\BEAZLEYBUB\Desktop\New folder\New folder\%%i?” “C:\Users\BEAZLEYBUB\Desktop\New folder\Copied” /i /z /y /s

  • Hi all,

    I want to do the following thing:

    I have an output of a DIR search result on a specific term “test” on volume c: in a text file, eg

    c:\Test
    c:\Joop\Test
    c:\John\Joop\Test

    I want to use this text file to make robocopy copy these folders and content to another drive/volume.
    I want to keep the exact folder structure in the destination drive, eg f:

    f:\Test
    f:\Joop\Test
    f:\John\Joop\Test

    I tried the For \f “delims=” %%I to read the strings of the text file and use the %%I as source for robocopy, but how can i make a destination path in the same way? I cannot use %%I for that, as the driveletter (c:\) is wrong in that case.

    Leave the destination empty results in

    f:\file.txt
    f:\Test
    f:\Joop

    (Without the root directories)

    Any suggestion?

    Thanx!

    (Sorry for my bad English)

  • Hi Brian,

    Great work with this blog.

    I had a quick question – probably the easiest one you’ve had to deal with. I’m new to scripting and I’m attempting to copy files with the contents “Parker” from a specific to another folder. The files have different extensions and identical file-names.

    For example:
    1.000001.pdf
    1.000001.txt
    1.000001.xml
    1.000001.doc

    2.000001.pdf
    2.000001.txt
    2.000001.xml
    2.000001.doc

    When I run the below script, only one of the pdfs is copied to the folder. I want where it copies all the pdfs. I’ve checked these pdfs and they do indeed have the content “Parker.” How would you adjust this script?

    for /f “delims=” %%a in (‘findstr /m /c:”Parker” *.*’) do echo F|xcopy “%%~Na.*” “C:\Test” /i /z /y

    Thanks in advance

  • does anyone know how to Create a batch file that automatically backups the users document folders. It needs to check if files exist in the destination, copy only files that have changed since the last time it was ran. It will need to create any files or folders that are new since last backup. When started it should ask the user for their full name, user name, to close all files and folders, and ask if it is ok to proceed with back up. The files should back up to the users H: drive into a folder called backup. The backup directory will then be compressed to save space. A log should be updated when ever the batch file is used, logging employee name, user name, time, and date.

  • hi all i required a batch file which copy folder & subfolders from clinet node to server/ How batch file will take ip address of all lan pcs pls guide or give me a single example for batch file

  • please can anyone help me with this batch file but its in dutch
    the idear was to make a search batch file and than at the end of the search, the batch file should prompt and ask do you wanna save the results to notepad , if yes then its will copy all the results into notepad and than it will allow you to save it where you want . but i cant figure out the code to call the notepad and the code for copying result anyhelp?

    echo off
    title zoekopalles
    color 9f
    =-=-=–=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

    :start
    cls
    echo %TIME% %Date%
    echo Halo %username%
    echo Welkome
    echo Gelieve uw voornaam in te vullen:
    echo.
    echo.
    set /p fnaam=
    echo.
    echo.
    echo Hallo leuk om jou te ontmoeten %fnaam%!
    pause>nul

    :start
    Title Het Menu
    cls
    echo %TIME% %DATE%
    echo Maak Uw Keuzen
    echo.
    echo 1- PDF Bestanden
    echo 2- Word Bestanden
    echo 3- Opnieuw Starten
    echo 4- Informatie over uw Dir
    echo 5- File Tree

    echo.
    echo.

    :start
    choice /c:12345
    cls
    IF ERRORLEVEL 5 GOTO FileTree
    IF ERRORLEVEL 4 GOTO informatieoveruwdir
    IF ERRORLEVEL 3 GOTO start
    IF ERRORLEVEL 2 GOTO WordBestanden
    IF ERRORLEVEL 1 GOTO PDFBestanden
    GOTO START

    :pdfbestanden
    dir c:\*.pdf /s

    @echo off
    echo even wachten………..
    pause>nul
    dir >> myfile.text

    :wordbestanden
    dir c:\*.doc /s
    dir c:\*.xls /s
    echo. Laad uw resultaat naar NotePad? J/N
    set /p ask=
    if %ask% == J goto NotePad
    if %ask% == j goto NotePad
    if %ask% == N goto START
    if %ask% == n goto START
    dir %file%
    exit

    :NotePad

    pause>nul

    GOTO START
    echo.
    echo.
    :InformatieoveruwDir
    dir c:\windows
    pause>nul
    echo start
    echo.
    echo.

    :tree
    tree C:/
    ping localhost -n 5 >nul
    pause>nul
    echo start

    :search text.
    pause>nul

    :refresh
    Title …even Wachten…
    cls
    echo …even wachten…
    goto Start

  • Hi brian,

    I need help, I need to copy specific files in a zip file and zip the copied files into another zip file.

    i have multiple zip files with file name like – Axxxxmmdd.ZIP where xxxxmmdd varies depending on date. The zip contains files such as A.txt, B.txt, TD-yyyymmdd.xxxx, TH-yyyymmdd.xxxx where yyyymmdd is the date and xxxx varies depending on the number say from 0001. I need to copy TD-yyyymmdd.xxxx and TH-yyyymmdd.xxxx and zip to another zip with filename same as the TH-yyyymmdd.xxxx. After zipping the two files, I have to send it automatically to the network’s shared folder through ftp, like \\192.168.1.1\folder

    I am not really familiar with batch file. Your help is highly appreciated and hope to hear from you soon 🙂

  • Hi All,
    Could you please help me with a Script.
    My Requirement is to check all Log Files in a location and search for a Pattern in the Files.
    If that Pattern is identified then I need to Output that Pattern into another File and display that file in the Browser.
    I have already tried few examples but I am not able to retrive the Pattern into a new File !!

    my script is :

    $Path1 = “D:\ABC\*.log”
    $Text = “*Error*”
    $Path3 = “D:\ABC\t1.html”

    $Content = Get-Content $Path1

    $Content | Foreach {
    if ($_ -ilike $Text)
    {Write-Output $_}
    }| ConvertTo-HTML | Out-File $Path3

    Appreciate a Quick Response !

    Thanks.

  • I need a solution to move / copy files from master parent folder to replace files in sub folders (up to 3 levels with same names.
    Eg parent folder has 100 word doc files; it has several sub folders with 5 or 6 files in each sub folder going deep to 3 levels is folder A have sub folder b b has sub folder c .
    Files in sub folder are older version of files in main folder and need to be replaced from main folder once moved all files in main folder will be moved to respective sub folder. Main folder will have no files.
    If move is not possible I want to copy to sub folders and then all files in main folder. Your help will be of immense value thank you!!

  • Hello Brian,
    If i want to move/cut the files and not copy, what command should i use.
    PS. i tried, “move” but didn’t work.

    Thanks,
    Ren

  • To move instead of copying, replace the “xcopy “\\server\share\folder\%%i” “c:\temp\%%i” /i /z /y” with something like this:

    move “\\server\share\folder\%%i” “c:\temp\%%i” /y

  • George London says:

    Blimey Brian – Kudos for still answering queries on this 13 years later!!

    Having trouble making it work myself, but will spend another couple of hours trying to see if I can work it out myself.
    Thanks again for the starting point.

  • Hi! am newbie, I just need batch file for doing search file in file path given in text file and copy it then paste on it destination path given in dest.txt file.
    It was look like
    source.txt:
    59 Eg003021
    59 Eg003022
    59 Eg003023
    59 Eg003024

    dest.txt:

    D:\upload\20177_July\13-07-2017

    59 was a volume no and the Eg003021 was an folder id and search FTP folder copy it to move it on dest and create which volume and paste it.
    can anyone know how to script it for this action in windows

  • Hi,

    I have n number of files in a directory with a pattern like (LLF_ABC************PDV*******.txt, LLF_DEF************PDV*******.txt etc..). And each file contains data with n number of lines in basically 3 pattern (starting with EH1, EH2 and EH3). Now I have to read all the files with that pattern as specified above and split it into 3 files with the name EH1.txt containing all the lines with EH1 data, than EH2 and EH3 similarly.
    Could you please guide me on creating the same using a windows batch script.

  • Hi brain!
    I have some problem, the problem is copying files that are listed in text file Like below:
    Listoftext.txt
    Volume 41 Eg007865
    Volume 42 Eg006545
    Volume 44 Eg005645
    These are in like some of path \\server\source\ and the volumes are like folders in above mentioned path and the Eg007865 are also folder.
    I need a batch file for search the folder in text file and inside Eg007865 search Ftp folder inside file should be copied.
    It must be paste on the path \\server\dest\”Name” the name is it should be get from user value in cmd.
    And put the copied file in that named folder inside create an folder like in text file.
    It shouldbe like:
    \\server\dest\joky\Volume 41\the copied file
    Like this for all in text file.
    Sorry for my bad English. I need it urgently to copy some huge files. So can u please fix with this batch.
    I’m waiting for your reply….

  • I’m working on Tif documents that need to be converted to pdf and then get OCR-ed. Now if some documents creates errors during that process an error log text will be created, what I need extract those files with tif format and copy them into another folder, how to do that?
    Error: The input file is corrupt or of an unknown/unsupported type
    Document: ACE16563R0000085745.TIF
    Command: Saving

    Error: Cannot open document.
    Document: ACE16563R0000085745.TIF

  • This is awesome – I needed a variation.

    I have a list of files in a textfile, but they are not exact, so I need to do something like copy TEXT*.*

    So if my list of files has
    Apple
    Orange
    Banana

    I want to move (Rather than copy) such as Apple*.* Orange*.* Banana*.* to a folder.

    Any ideas?

  • Hi,

    1.Read all the paths from text file; text file contains paths on each line(paths pointing to different folder location)
    2.Create backup of those files/folders in that specific path location in the parent directory

    Ex: text.txt
    c:/temp/file1
    d:/source/file2
    c:/program/windows/app/file3.ext

    result:
    c:/temp
    file1 file1yyyymmdd
    d:/source
    file2 file2yyymmdd
    c://program/windows/app
    file3.ext file3yyyymmdd.ext

    I want to create backup for those folders in the parent folder.

  • I am looking for a script where I want to read files from LogFile and then delete all those files mentioned in LogFile from physical location and then get the log in another logfile.

  • Hi I need help from yours
    My requirement is : I have folder”region” which contain sub folder like”NA”,”NZ”,”EMEA”,”INDIA” each sub folder contain files.

    here i need each file name(only file name not content),and received date, file size help me in this thanks advance………

  • I have written the following command but the files are not getting copied to the required folder:
    for /f “delims=” %%i in (G:\pdf\GJ058423.docx) do echo F|xcopy “\\G:\pdf\%%i” “G:\pdf\NEW\%%i” /i /z /c
    please help me with this problem..

  • How to move selected files from different subfolder to one single folder using DOS command?
    I have so many folders which are kept in desktop, as shown
    C:\Users\272670\Desktop\dump
    inside dump folder I have folder1 folder2 etc… folders are there
    I want to move some selected files from the folder (folder1, folder2….) to Test folder (C:\Users\272670\Desktop\dump\test)
    kindly give the DOS command for the same above.

  • Hello, I am trying to following batch code to copy files from source dir to destination dir from a list:

    @echo off
    for /f “delims=.*” %%i in (list.txt) do echo D|xcopy “C:\Program Files (x86)\SharedFiles\PDF\%%i” “c:\temp” /i /z /y

    But the list contains only the file name, with not extension. For example
    file1
    file2
    file3

    Is there anyway to do this copy where it still copies the file base on just the file name and ignoring the file extension.

    Thank you!

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