Robocopy: Move only folders including contents older than date specified

Question

Robocopy: Move only folders including contents older than date specified

Rick 41

I am trying to move folders from one server to another that are older (date modified) than August 31, 2021. I need it to move the folders regardless of the file dates.

I have the following parameters, but just copied still compares the files dates and moves only older files.

robocopy "\\source\Folder1" "\\dest\Folder2" /E /ZB /SECFIX /COPYALL /MOV /TEE /R:5 /W:10 /MINAGE:20210831

2 answers

Your answer

Answer 1

MotoX80 36,416

Run "robocopy /?". Minage references files, not folders.

/MINAGE:n :: MINimum file AGE - exclude files newer than n days/date.

With Powershell, we can look at the directories and analyze the dates. The main question is how you want to handle subfolders. If you want to process the folders all at the same level, then there should not be a issue with using the /MOV switch.

\source\share\folder1
\source\share\folder2
\source\share\folder3

$TargetDate = get-date "August 31, 2021"  
$Source = "c:\temp"  
$Dest = "Z:\Temp"   
Get-ChildItem -Path $Source -Directory  | Where-Object -Property LastWriteTime -lt $TargetDate | foreach {  
    $RcDest = $Dest + $_.FullName.Substring($Source.Length)   
    Write-Host "robocopy $($_.fullname) $RcDest /mov /e /l"     # just display the robocopy command to execute  
    # Uncomment the next line and fix switches to actually execute robocopy   
    #robocopy.exe $($_.fullname) $RcDest /mov /e /l  
}

But if you want to move some subfolders but not others, then you will need to test thoroughly to verify that the files and folders get processed correctly.

\source\share\folder1\folder2\folder3\folder4

So if you wanted to move the files in folder2 and 4 but not 1 and 3, then you would need to use the -recurse switch on Get-childitem and you could not use /e with robocopy.

Rick 41 Reputation points

2022-11-09T00:16:26.077+00:00

"\source\Folder1" has hundreds of folders. I need to move the folders with its content (which includes sub folders and files while preserving DATS) to "\dst\Folder2". It is possible that a file in some subdirectory within the source maybe newer than the date in the root folder. I would still need that moved since I want to preserve the root folder contents along with security details.

Would this script accomplish this?

MotoX80 36,416

That will require an analysis of every file in every subfolder. Run this script against the source. It will report on the most recently updated file/folder. Does it find the correct folders that you want to move?

$TargetDate = (get-date "August 31, 2021")  
$Source = "c:\temp"  
$Dest = "Z:\Temp"   
$TopLevelFolders = Get-ChildItem -Path $Source -Directory   
"I found {0} top level folders. " -f $TopLevelFolders.count   
"Our target date is {0}" -f $TargetDate  
Foreach ($fldr in $TopLevelFolders) {  
    $fldr.fullname  
    $newest = Get-ChildItem -Path $fldr.fullname -Recurse | Sort-Object -Property LastWriteTime -Descending |Select-Object -First 1    
    "    {0}   {1}" -f $newest.LastWriteTime, $newest.FullName  
    If ($TargetDate -gt $newest.LastWriteTime) {  
        "    Move {0} to the new server." -f $fldr.fullname   
    } else {  
        "    Do not move this folder."  
    }  
}

Rick 41 Reputation points

2022-11-10T15:02:24.167+00:00

I tried running the first code in PowerShell, but it didn't display anything.
MotoX80 36,416 Reputation points

2022-11-10T15:05:59.703+00:00

Did you change the $source variable to point to whatever folder you wish to process?
Rick 41 Reputation points

2022-11-10T15:23:26.28+00:00

I was testing the second code. If I can just go through just the $TopLevelFolders, it might work, but not sure how to edit it to do so.
MotoX80 36,416 Reputation points

2022-11-10T15:36:39.567+00:00

But you commented:

It is possible that a file in some subdirectory within the source maybe newer than the date in the root folder. I would still need that moved

Doesn't that mean that if you have a recently updated file like:

\source\share\folder1\subfolderA\subfolderB\SomeFile.txt

Then you would NOT want to move the entire \source\share\folder1 to the new server even though the lastwritetime on folder1 is really old?

Did I understand that correctly?
MotoX80 36,416 Reputation points

2022-11-10T15:39:26.933+00:00

If you only want to look at the top level folders, then the first code sample would work because I don't have -recurse on the get-childitem.
Rick 41 Reputation points

2022-11-10T15:40:17.197+00:00

I just want to look at each top level folder's date and if it is older than TargetDate then move the WHOLE folder to the other server while preserving all security attributes. In essence the first code should work. I edited the first line and the write.console showed the correct folders.

I assume I would just need to change the write console to

robocopy.exe $($_.fullname) $RcDest /E /ZB /SECFIX /COPYALL /MOVE /R:5 /W:10
MotoX80 36,416 Reputation points

2022-11-10T15:51:20.447+00:00

That would be the first script.

You would need to modify it to actually run robocopy.exe after testing it. And you need to test the actual robocopy switches on one or two folders to verify that it's doing what you want.

Personally, I would not use /mov. I think that I would do this process in 2 steps. The first step copies the files to the new server. The second step either deletes or zips up the folders that got moved.

That way if the robocopy step got interrupted or if the permissions did not get copied correctly, then you could go back and rerun the copy process.

Answer 2

Permissions are all Active Directory groups, correct? That is, no local users or groups.

\source\share\folder1 locally might be something like E:\Data\folder1. The concern that I would have is: where does permission inheritance start? If folder1 does not inherit permissions from data, then a "folder1 to folder1" should be a straightforward copy.

For the sake of argument, let's say that \dest\share points to N:\NewData

If folder1 does inherit from data, then I'd make sure that the permissions on N:\NewData match those on E:\Data.

/E :: copy subdirectories, including Empty ones.
/ZB :: use restartable mode; if access denied use Backup mode.
/SECFIX :: FIX file SECurity on all files, even skipped files.
/COPYALL :: COPY ALL file info (equivalent to /COPY:DATSOU).
/MOVE :: MOVE files AND dirs (delete from source after copying).
/R:5 :: number of Retries on failed copies:
/W:10 :: Wait time between retries:

I'm just real cautious when doing a data migration. Bad things happen. That's why I would not delete any source files/folders until I completed the migration and verified that everything got copied and permissions were checked. So /MOVE is the only switch that I would question.

One suggestion that I would have is: don't have the PS script call robocopy.exe directly. Just have the script build and display the robocopy commands. Pipe them to a DataMover.bat file. Edit the file with notepad and pick a folder or 2 or 3, and manually run those robocopy's. Validate that everything worked correctly before running the .bat file to move the "hundreds of folders".

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Robocopy: Move only folders including contents older than date specified

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