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boot4life
Asked: 2016-05-25 09:06:34 +0800 CST

How to exclude files in a folder with pattern with robocopy?

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I'd like to exclude all files matching C:\dir1\*.ext so I say:

robocopy C:\dir1 C:\dir2 /E /B /MIR /xf C:\dir1\*.ext

According to the documentation this should work:

/xf <FileName>[ ...]

Excludes files that match the specified names or paths. Note that FileName can include wildcard characters (* and ?).

But it results in:

ERROR : Invalid Parameter #16 : "xyz"

How can I exclude based on this pattern? Excluding by directory or by file name pattern is not specific enough.

windows robocopy

3 Answers

  1. I guess you're missing a subfolder there, like in:

    robocopy C:\dir1 C:\dir2 /E /B /MIR /xf C:\dir1\subdir\*.ext

    Otherwise, this should work:

    robocopy C:\dir1 C:\dir2 /E /B /MIR /xf *.ext

    From my experience, /xf can use the wildcard just for names, and not for paths. I don't think it's possible that mix.

    As a workaround, you may launch robocopy twice:

    robocopy C:\dir1 C:\dir2 /E /B /MIR /xd C:\dir1\subdir\
robocopy C:\dir1\subdir C:\dir2\subdir /E /B /MIR /xf *.ext
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  2. According to the documentation at https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/administration/windows-commands/robocopy:

    /xf <FileName>[ ...] Excludes files that match the specified names or paths. Note that FileName can include wildcard characters (* and ?).
    /xd <Directory>[ ...] Excludes directories that match the specified names and paths.

    So this specifically means that wildcard can be used in the /xf flag but not in the /xd flag.

    • 1

  3. You can read more about robocopy syntax :

    set _src="C:\dir1"
set _dst="C:\dir2"
set _option=/E /B /MIR
set _xf="C:\dir1\subdir\*.ext"

robocopy %_src% %_dst% %_option% %_xf%
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