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Move only top file from folder

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Hi,

I would like to move my top zip file from downloads folder to another folder.

I can filter the zip files in the Get files in Folder action, and sort them based on creation date, how do I ensure my flow only picks up the top file to be moved. Is there a filter function?

Thanks,

Brian

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Power Automate Desktop

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Pstork1 68,717 Most Valuable Professional on at

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That depends on what you mean by the top file. If you are sorting by creation date do you want the newest or the oldest file? After you get your files from the folder in sorted order you can use the First() function on the array of files to select only the first file from the list.

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Community Power Pla... on at

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Thanks @Pstork1, I would like to use the newest files, and I have used the Get files function and sorted the list from new to old based on creation date. Which particular action do I need to use to filter the first file?

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Pstork1 68,717 Most Valuable Professional on at

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It wouldn't be an action. There is a function available in the Expressions tab of the dynamic content dialog. YOu would use that to filter the array of files returned. If I use the list files in a folder for OneDrive the code looks like this.

first(outputs('List_files_in_folder')?['body/value'])

You can use that directly where you want to access the file or drop it into a compose action.

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Community Power Pla... on at

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Thanks @Pstork1 , I am new to Power automate desktop, so not really sure where I can execute this.

Performed the following steps

1) Get all files from folder, by get files action and sorted them based on creation date and is saved in a variable 'Files'.

Want to move the first file from this variable into a different folder, but still not able to extract only the first file from the folder.

Appreciate all your responses so far.

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Pstork1 68,717 Most Valuable Professional on at

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Sorry, I hadn't noticed this was Power Automate Desktop. I was showing you things for regular Power Automate. Let me take a look at PAD. There should be a similar capability.

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Pstork1 68,717 Most Valuable Professional on at

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OK, I got it. To get the first item in the list of files returned you need to include the index of the file when you retrieve it from the list variable. So when I do Get files in folder it creates a variable called 'Files'. I can then use %Files% to get the whole list or %Files[0]% to get the first file in the list.

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Jamar_Forsythe Microsoft Employee on at

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Variable manipulation and the % notation - Power Automate | Microsoft Learn
Variable data types - Power Automate | Microsoft Learn

These are some good links to help get familiar with Variables.

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Community Power Pla... on at

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Hi,

I am using a flow to select the latest file in a selection window.
I have tried this and is able to get the latest file.
However, the flow actually paste the file with the whole file path into the file name of the selection window.

Correct me if I am wrong. From this, it seems that "%Files[0]%" contains the whole file path of the file (i.e. "C:\User\etc\file1.txt", instead of only "file1.txt") How do I extract the file name only, without the whole file path? Is there tools to cut particular portion from an obtained "%Files[0]"? Is this issue only occurring for the selection window which I am using?

Best regards,
Tan Boon Chang

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