See also: ATTRIB, MOVE, and REN.

 

File Selection

 

Supports attribute switches, extended wildcards, ranges, multiple file names, delayed variable expansion, and include lists. Date, time, size or exclude ranges anywhere on the line apply to all source files. Use wildcards with caution on LFN volumes; see LFN File Searches for details.

 

Internet

 

Can be used with FTP / FTPS / TFTP / HTTP / HTTPS Servers.

 

Usage

 

If you don't specify any arguments, COPY will display its command dialog.

 

The simplest use of COPY is to make a copy of a file, like this example which makes a copy of a file called FILE1.ABC:

 

copy file1.abc file2.def

 

You can also copy a file to another drive and/or directory. The following command copies FILE1 to the \MYDIR directory on drive E:

 

copy file1 e:\mydir

 

When you COPY files to or from an LFN drive, you must quote any file names which contain white space or special characters.

 

If you specify the /C, /CF, /R, /U, or /UF options, COPY will append a ! to the copy specifier if the target exists and is being overwritten. For example:

 

[d:\] copy file1 file2

file1 =>! file2

 

To emulate an approach used by some implementations of CMD, see the COPYCMD topic.

 

COPY sets three internal variables:

 

 

•Copying Files

 

You can copy several files at once by using wildcards:

 

copy *.txt e:\mydir

 

You can also list several source files in one command. The following command copies 3 specific files from the current directory to the \MYDIR directory on drive E:

 

copy file1 file2 file3 e:\mydir

 

COPY also understands include lists, so you can specify several different kinds of files in the same command. This command copies the .TXT, .DOC, and .BAT files from the E:\MYDIR directory to the root directory of drive A:

 

copy e:\mydir\*.txt;*.doc;*.bat a:\

 

If there is only one parameter on the line, COPY assumes it is the source, and uses the current drive and directory as the destination. For example, the following command copies all the .DAT files from the current directory on drive A to the current directory on the current drive:

 

copy a:*.dat

 

If there are two or more parameters on the line separated by spaces, then COPY assumes that the last parameter is the destination and copies all source files to this new location. If the destination is a drive, directory, or device name, the source files are copied individually to the new location. If the destination is a file name, the first source file is copied to the destination, and any additional source files are then appended to the new destination file.

 

For example, the first of these commands copies the .DAT files from the current directory on drive A individually to C:\MYDIR (which must already exist as a directory); the second appends all the .DAT files together into one large file called C:\DATA (assuming C:\DATA is not a directory):

 

copy a:*.dat c:\mydir\

copy a:*.dat c:\data

 

When you copy to a directory, if you add a backslash \ to the end of the name as shown in the first example above, COPY will display an error message if the name does not refer to an existing directory. You can use this feature to keep COPY from treating a mistyped destination directory name as a file name and attempting to append all your source files to a single destination file, when you really meant to copy them individually to a destination directory.

 

To copy text to or from the clipboard use CLIP: as the device name. Using CLIP: with non-text data will produce unpredictable results. See Redirection for more information on CLIP:.

 

•Appending Files

 

A plus sign + tells COPY to append two or more source files to a single destination file. If you list several source files separated with + and don't specify a destination, COPY will use the name of the first source file as the destination, and append each subsequent file to the first file.

 

For example, the following command will append the contents of MEMO2 and MEMO3 to MEMO1 and leave the combined contents in the file named MEMO1:

 

copy memo1+memo2+memo3

 

To append the same three files but store the result in BIGMEMO:

 

copy memo1+memo2+memo3 bigmemo

 

If no destination is specified, the destination file will always be created in the current directory even if the first source file is in another directory or on another drive. For example, this command will append C:\MEM\MEMO2 and C:\MEM\MEMO3 to D:\DATA\MEMO1, and leave the result in C:\MEM\MEMO1:

 

[c:\mem] copy d:\data\memo1+memo2+memo3

 

You cannot append files to a device (such as a printer); if you try to do so, COPY will ignore the + signs and copy the files individually. If you attempt to append several source files to a destination directory or disk, COPY will append the files and place the copy in the new location with the same name as the first source file.

 

You cannot append a file to itself.

 

•FTP Usage

 

If you have appropriate permissions, you can copy to and from Internet URLs (FTP, TFTP and HTTP). Many FTP servers use case sensitive file systems. For example:

 

copy ftp://ftp.abc.com/xyz/index index

 

Files copied to or from FTP/HTTP Servers are normally transferred in binary mode. To perform an ASCII transfer use the /L switch. File descriptions are not copied when copying files to an Internet URL.

 

COPY supports the special syntax

 

copy con: ftp:...

 

to directly copy text from the console to an ftp location.

 

Wildcard characters such as * and ? will be treated as wildcards in FTP URLs, but will be treated as normal characters in HTTP URLs.

 

Note: The /G option (percentage copied) may report erratic values during transfer of files larger than 4 Gb (an ftp limitation) and during http downloads.

 

You can also use the IFTP command to start an FTP session on a server, and then use an abbreviated syntax to specify the files and directories you want. For more information, see Using FTP/HTTP Servers and IFTP.

 

•NTFS File Streams

 

COPY supports file streams on NTFS drives. You can copy an individual stream by specifying the stream name, for example:

 

copy myfile:mystream stream.copy

 

If no stream name is specified the entire file is copied, including all streams. However, if you copy a file to a drive or device which does not support streams, only the file's primary data is copied; any additional streams are not processed.

 

See NTFS File Streams for additional details.

 

•Advanced Features

 

If your destination has wildcards in it, COPY will attempt to match them with the source names. For example, this command copies the .DAT files from drive A to C:\MYDIR and gives the new copies the extension .DX:

 

copy a:*.dat c:\mydir\*.dx

 

This feature can give you unexpected results if you use it with multiple source file names. For example, suppose that drive A contains XYZ.DAT and XYZ.TXT. The command:

 

copy a:\*.dat a:\*.txt c:\mydir\*.dx

 

will copy A:XYZ.DAT to C:\MYDIR\XYZ.DX. Then it will copy A:XYZ.TXT to C:\MYDIR\XYZ.DX, overwriting the first file it copied.

 

You can use date, time, and size ranges to further define the files that you want to copy. This example copies every file in the E:\MYDIR directory, which was created or modified yesterday, and which is also 10,000 bytes or smaller in size, to the root directory of drive A:

 

copy /[d-1] /[s0,10000] e:\mydir\* a:\

 

You can also use file exclusion ranges to restrict the list of files that would normally be selected with wildcards. This example copies every file in the E:\MYDIR directory except backup (.BAK or .BK) files:

 

copy /[!*.bak *.bk] e:\mydir\* a:\

 

COPY will normally process source files which do not have the hidden or system attribute, and will ignore the read-only and archive attributes. It will always set the archive attribute and clear the read-only attribute of destination files. In addition, if the destination is an existing file with the read-only attribute, COPY will generate an Access Denied error and refuse to overwrite the file. You can alter some of these behaviors with switches:

 

 

 

 

 

You can copy files to multiple destinations with the TO: option. For example, to copy letter.doc to three different directories:

 

Note: The wildcard expansion process will attempt to allow both CMD-style "extension" matching (assumes only one extension, at the end of the word) and the advanced TCC-RT string matching (allowing things like *.*.abc) when an asterisk is encountered in the destination of a COPY command.

 

COPY supports regular expression back references in the target name. If you are using back references, you must also use a regular expression in the source name. The syntax is:

 

copy ::filename ::target

 

COPY supports connected web folders. If an HTML file (i.e.,  with an .htm or .html extension) is copied, COPY will look for a  folder in the same directory with the same name and an extension of ".files". If it is found, the .files directory will be copied to the target directory. You can disable connected web folders by setting the registry key:

 

HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\NoFileFolderConnection=0

 

You can override the default HTTP proxy server, proxy user, and proxy password (set in TCMD.INI) with the /Proxy... options.

 

/Proxy=server

/ProxyUser=username

/ProxyPwd=password

 

Options

 

The /A (ASCII copy) and /B (binary copy) options apply to the preceding filename and to all subsequent filenames on the command line until the file name preceding the next /A or /B, if any. All other options apply to all filenames on the command line, no matter where you put them.

 

Some options do not make sense in certain contexts, in which case COPY will ignore them. For example, you cannot prompt before replacing an existing file when the destination is a device such as the printer; there's no such thing as an "existing file" on the printer. If you use conflicting output options, like /Q and /P, COPY will generally take a "conservative" approach and give priority to the option which generates more prompts or more information.

 

 

 

This option applies to the filename immediately preceding it, and to all subsequent filenames until the file name preceding the next /A or /B option.

 

 

You can specify /A:= to display a dialog to help you set individual attributes.

 

 

This option applies to the filename immediately preceding it, and to all subsequent filenames until the file name preceding the next /A or /B option.

 

 

 

 

 

 

type - The type of CRC to create. Possible types are:

MD5

CRC32

SHA1

SHA256

SHA384

SHA512

 

filename - The file that contains the CRC and file names (one per line).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A /N with one or more of the following arguments has an alternate meaning:

 

 

 

 

 

You may use any combination of the sorting options below. If multiple options are used, the listing will be sorted with the first sort option as the primary key, the next as the secondary key, and so on:

 

 

The /O:... option saves all of the matching filenames and then performs the copy. This avoids the potential problem of copying files more than once.

 

 

/Proxy=server

 

/ProxyUser=username

 

/ProxyPwd=password

 

 

 

 

 

If you attempt to use COPY /S to copy a subdirectory tree into part of itself, COPY will detect the resulting infinite loop, display an error message and exit. Do not use /S with @file lists. See @file lists for details.

 

If you specify a number after the /S, COPY will limit the subdirectory recursion to that number. For example, if you have a directory tree "\a\b\c\d\e", /S2 will only affect the "a", "b", and "c" directories.

 

If you specify a + followed by a number after the /S, COPY will not copy any files until it gets to that depth in the subdirectory tree. For example, if you have a directory tree \a\b\c\d\e, /S+2 will not copy anything in \a or \a\b.

 

 

copy /sx c:\files\*.exe d:\exefiles\

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

/WAIT=n Pause for n milliseconds between each block copied from the source to the target file. This is useful for users with slow networks and very large file copies; it prevents COPY from monopolizing all of the network I/O.