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How do I Filter Out Items from Get subfolders in Folder menus in Power Automate Desktop

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Posted on by Community Power Pla... Microsoft Employee

Hi,

I am new to Power Automate Desktop, and I am trying to create automation to make a temporary backup of a user's files prior to IT replacing their PC with a newer model. I got my flow to copy the Folders for Desktop, Downloads, & Favorites for each user of another PC on the domain and copy them to IS network storage drive. However, I can't get it to copy the My Documents folder. I keep get an error that "Access is denied for subfolder "My Music", "My Videos", and "My Pictures" which seem to be hidden within the My Documents folder. I have admin rights and I have tried running Power Automate with elevated permissions but still no luck. So, the easiest fix I can think of is to filter out the subfolders I don't want. What is the syntax to filter out an item using the Folder filter options in the Get Subfolders in Folder action menu?

Alternatively, if anyone knows a workaround to the "Access denied to subfolder" error I am getting when trying to copy the My Documents folder I would love to know the fix.

Thanks

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Power Automate Desktop

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momlo 1,527 Super User 2024 Season 1 on at

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Not direct solution to "access denied" on those special folder (I tested myself and got the same), but another approach you could take is to use DIR dos command to get root folders in Documents - that will give you list of visible folders, then copy these in loop.

Copy and paste the code into your PAD:

Folder.GetSpecialFolder SpecialFolder: Folder.SpecialFolder.Personal SpecialFolderPath=> DocumentsFolder Scripting.RunDOSCommand.RunDOSCommand DOSCommandOrApplication: $'''DIR /D /B %DocumentsFolder.FullName%''' StandardOutput=> RootFolders StandardError=> CommandErrorOutput ExitCode=> CommandExitCode Text.SplitText.Split Text: RootFolders StandardDelimiter: Text.StandardDelimiter.NewLine DelimiterTimes: 1 Result=> RootFolders Variables.RemoveItemFromList.RemoveItemFromListByValue Item: $'''%''%''' ItemMatchAllOccurrences: True List: RootFolders LOOP FOREACH CurrentItem IN RootFolders Folder.Copy Folder: $'''%DocumentsFolder%\\%CurrentItem%''' Destination: $'''%DocumentsFolder%\\backup''' IfFolderExists: Folder.IfExists.Overwrite CopiedFolder=> CopiedFolder END

However, i recommend you take a look at another dos command: xcopy, perhaps this will help you to achiove your goal easier than automating everything with PAD:

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/administration/windows-commands/xcopy
Community Power Pla... Microsoft Employee on at

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Thanks for the info! I will definitely have to read up on it. I can read and/or get the jist of scripts, but my grammar/syntax isn't great. This was mostly a thought experiment to try out the program. For some context, I work for small IT company that contacts within a hospital and we have several scripted tools, but the team member that wrote them has since left and I was looking for a way to centralize tools while limiting the amount scripting knowledge required to keep them updated. I wanted to try using Power Desktop Automate since it has If/Else logic and AD integration.

I was able to work through the issue by using "Get List of Subfolder" to report all folders and the used "for each" logic to check the "CurrentItem" name and remove the entries from the folder list if it contains My Music, Pictures, or Videos. Still seems a little strange that you can't even touch those folders and I can't for the life of me find clear directions for how to use the Filter options.
momlo 1,527 Super User 2024 Season 1 on at

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Filter works as in windows explorer, this is not full regex hence i doubt you can exclude the specific folders using it 😞
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Well, that's a bummer, but good to know. It would have been amazing if I could filter out items in a list that way. Would make my flows much cleaner. Thanks for the help!