Copies one or more files to another location.

COPY [/D] [/V] [/N] [/Y | /-Y] [/Z] [/L] [/A | /B ] source [/A | /B] [+ source [/A | /B] [+ ...]] [destination [/A | /B]]

source         Specifies the file or files to be copied.
/A               Indicates an ASCII text file.
/B               Indicates a binary file.
/D               Allow the destination file to be created decrypted
destination   Specifies the directory and/or filename for the new file(s).
/V               Verifies that new files are written correctly.
/N               Uses short filename, if available, when copying a file with a non-8dot3 name.
/Y               Suppresses prompting to confirm you want to overwrite an existing destination file.
/-Y             Causes prompting to confirm you want to overwrite an existing destination file.
/Z               Copies networked files in restartable mode.
/L               If the source is a symbolic link, copy the link to the target instead of the actual file the source link points to.

The switch /Y may be preset in the COPYCMD environment variable.
This may be overridden with /-Y on the command line. Default is to prompt on overwrites unless COPY command is being executed from within a batch script.

To append files, specify a single file for destination, but multiple files for source (using wildcards or file1+file2+file3 format).

Notes

This command has largely been replaced by ROBOCOPY.

Examples

copy file.txt d:\directory\file2.txt /y

Associated Commands

MOVE ; XCOPY ; ROBOCOPY

 

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Last Page Update: 08/03/2012

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