Copy Folder Structure (Without Files) from One Location to Another

Copy folder structure (without files) from one location to another

You could do something like:

find . -type d > dirs.txt

to create the list of directories, then

xargs mkdir -p < dirs.txt

to create the directories on the destination.

copy directory structure without files

If the target is a relative path your command will get into an infinite loop. Below one doesn't have that problem.

find "$1/." -type d -exec bash -c '
mkdir -p "${@/*\/.\//"$0"/}"' "$2" {} +

• Uses $1/. as the starting point so that /./ marks where source path ends in each path.
• Relies on bash's pattern substitution PE; "${@/*\/.\//"$0"/}" replaces the longest match of */./ with the target path in each member of $@ (i.e paths selected) and expands to the resultant list.
• Abuses $0 a bit but it won't cause any harm.

Handling of positional parameters is left to OP.

how to copy directory structure without actually copying the content into another directory

This worked for me:

import java.io.File;

public class StartCloneFolderOnly {

    /**
     * @param args
     */
    public static void main(String[] args) {        
        cloneFolder("C:/source",
                "C:/target");       
    }

    public static void cloneFolder(String source, String target) {
        File targetFile = new File(target);
        if (!targetFile.exists()) {
            targetFile.mkdir();
        }
        for (File f : new File(source).listFiles()) {
        if (f.isDirectory()) {
                String append = "/" + f.getName();
                System.out.println("Creating '" + target + append + "': "
                        + new File(target + append).mkdir());
                cloneFolder(source + append, target + append);
            }
        }
    }   
}

How to copy folder structure under another directory?

For me the following works fine:

• Iterate over existing folders

• Build the structure for the new folders based on existing ones

• Check, if the new folder structure does not exist
• If so, create new folder without files

Code:

import os

inputpath = 'D:/f/'
outputpath = 'D:/g/'

for dirpath, dirnames, filenames in os.walk(inputpath):
    structure = os.path.join(outputpath, dirpath[len(inputpath):])
    if not os.path.isdir(structure):
        os.mkdir(structure)
    else:
        print("Folder does already exits!")

Documentation:

• os.walk
• os.mkdir
• os.path.isdir

Create folder structure and copy file inside without specific path

It wasn't absolutely clear to me which directories you wanted the source file, in this case C:\Users\Giovani\Pictures\Portrait.jpg, to be copied to, So I'm offering two complete batch-file options, where the final directories will be placed along side the batch file itself.

The first will copy to each 'new' directory, including 1.Capture:

@Echo Off
For %%G In (
    "1.Capture"
    "1.Capture\Selected"
    "1.Capture\Discard"
    "2.Projects"
    "3.Masters"
    "4.Web"
    "5.Instagram"
) Do %SystemRoot%\System32\xcopy.exe "C:\Users\Giovani\Pictures\Portrait.jpg" "%~dp0%%~G\" /CHIKQRY 1>NUL

The second will do the same, creating the 1.Capture directory, but not copying to it:

@Echo Off
SetLocal EnableExtensions
For %%G In (
    "1.Capture\Selected"
    "1.Capture\Discard"
    "2.Projects"
    "3.Masters"
    "4.Web"
    "5.Instagram"
) Do %SystemRoot%\System32\xcopy.exe "C:\Users\Giovani\Pictures\Portrait.jpg" "%~dp0%%~G\" /CHIKQRY 1>NUL

Copy folders without files, files without folders, or everything using PowerShell

To copy everything in a folder hierarchie

Copy-Item $source $dest -Recurse -Force

To copy the hierarchie you can try:

$source = "C:\ProdData"
$dest = "C:\TestData"
Copy-Item $source $dest -Filter {PSIsContainer} -Recurse -Force

To flatten a file structure you can try:

$source = "C:\ProdData"
$dest = "C:\TestData"
New-Item $dest -type directory
Get-ChildItem $source -Recurse | `
    Where-Object { $_.PSIsContainer -eq $False } | `
    ForEach-Object {Copy-Item -Path $_.Fullname -Destination $dest -Force} 

Good luck!

copy a directory structure with file names without content

You can use find:

find src/ -type d -exec mkdir -p dest/{} \; \
       -o -type f -exec touch dest/{} \;

Find directory (-d) under (src/) and create (mkdir -p) them under dest/ or (-o) find files (-f) and touch them under dest/.

This will result in:

dest/src/<file-structre>

You can user mv creatively to resolve this issue.

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Other (partial) solution can be achieved with rsync:

rsync -a --filter="-! */" sorce_dir/ target_dir/

The trick here is the --filter=RULE option that excludes (-) everything that is not (!) a directory (*/)

How to copy a directory structure but only include certain files (using windows batch files)

You don't mention if it has to be batch only, but if you can use ROBOCOPY, try this:

ROBOCOPY C:\Source C:\Destination data.zip info.txt /E

EDIT: Changed the /S parameter to /E to include empty folders.

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