Hi there,
In the spirit of DIY I would like to create a batch file to backup my music library, however I would like to it to only add new files to the backup.

something like:

What would I need to do to make sure that it doesn't overwrite files that already exist?

Thanks

Use the copy /-Y option

Something like:

COPY /-Y E:\*.mp3 F:\music\

This will prompt you to overwrite or not. That way, you can copy them all, or overwrite as it's copying. But, it won't overwrite unless you tell it to.

-Rick

Thanks Rick,
That worked great for initially copying my files over but when I tried my first "Backup" it prompted me to overwrite each file individually.



I would like the script to only copy new files over (files that do not exist in the backup folder, to save time)

Perhaps I need to send the output to a loop that returns "no"?
Or maybe I should compare the files in the two locations first, then only copy new files over with a more elaborate script?

OK.. try this then:

XCopy /-U E:\*.mp3 F:\music\

The /U option will only copy files that already exist. The /-U should copy only those that do not already exist.

-Rick

If you want to take the time to learn it, robocopy is an excellent tool designed just for this type of thing.

From the resource toolkit.

Old topic, but I thought I would post.

pipe an 'n' to each question on the overwrite. the /-y is required in batch files or it assumes /y.