NEWBIE - MOVE FILES BASED ON FILE NAME

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Posted on by fedealbo

Hello and thank you to who will help me.

I am totally new to the world of automatization since my background is totally different.

Rookie question: I have a folder with a certain amount of files inside.

The naming of the files is structured as follows:

EMV-41-MOD-EMV-GHE-V09.ifc.rvt

EMV-41-MOD-EMV-GHE-V10.ifc.rvt

EMV-41-MOD-EMV-GHE-V11.ifc.rvt

EMV-41-MOD-EMV-GLU-V12.ifc.rvt

EMV-41-MOD-EMV-GLU-V13.ifc.rvt

EMV-41-MOD-EMV-GLU-V14.ifc.rvt

etc. You can easily see the path.

Inside each group of files (being all files starting with EMV-41-MOD-EMV-GHE one group, and all files starting with EMV-41-MOD-EMV-GLU another group, and so on) I want to move the files with the lower V## value to a specific folder.

How can I do it? So far I have only been able to move all files with .ifc.rvt extension.

Thank you

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Power Automate Desktop

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Nived_Nambiar 18,129 Super User 2025 Season 2 on at

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Hi @fedealbo

Could you please elaborate what you meant by lower V## value ?

Thanks & Regards,
Nived N

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fedealbo 18 on at

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Yes, sure. Each file has a version number, which I have highlighted in bold. This number increases as the project develops. I want, within the same group of files, to move the files with a smaller version number to a specific folder.

Example:

EMV-41-MOD-EMV-GHE-V09.ifc.rvt
EMV-41-MOD-EMV-GHE-V10.ifc.rvt
EMV-41-MOD-EMV-GHE-V11.ifc.rvt

EMV-41-MOD-EMV-GLU-V12.ifc.rvt
EMV-41-MOD-EMV-GLU-V13.ifc.rvt
EMV-41-MOD-EMV-GLU-V14.ifc.rvt

Out of this list of files, I want to keep where they are the files in black, and move to a specific folder the files in orange.

Thanks

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Nived_Nambiar 18,129 Super User 2025 Season 2 on at

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Ok got it

One more question

Does files are already grouped before the process is started ?

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fedealbo 18 on at

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what do you mean? all files are in the same folder before the process is started
thank you for your help

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Nived_Nambiar 18,129 Super User 2025 Season 2 on at

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Also one more thing,

Does there would be always two groups of files there ?

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fedealbo 18 on at

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no, groups are more than two and vary in number
thank you

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fedealbo 18 on at

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this is how far I got but it is not working

Capture.JPG

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Verified answer

Nived_Nambiar 18,129 Super User 2025 Season 2 on at

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Hi @fedealbo

Kindly copy the below code in power automate desktop

SET Input_folder TO $'''%''%'''
SET Output_folder TO $'''%''%'''
Variables.CreateNewList List=> Pattern_List
Folder.GetFiles Folder: Input_folder FileFilter: $'''*''' IncludeSubfolders: False FailOnAccessDenied: True SortBy1: Folder.SortBy.NoSort SortDescending1: False SortBy2: Folder.SortBy.NoSort SortDescending2: False SortBy3: Folder.SortBy.NoSort SortDescending3: False Files=> Files2
LOOP FOREACH file1 IN Files2
Text.Replace Text: file1.NameWithoutExtension TextToFind: $'''V\\d+.*''' IsRegEx: True IgnoreCase: False ReplaceWith: $'''%''%''' ActivateEscapeSequences: True Result=> replaced
Variables.AddItemToList Item: replaced List: Pattern_List
END
Variables.RemoveDuplicateItemsFromList List: Pattern_List IgnoreCase: False
LOOP FOREACH pattern IN Pattern_List
Variables.CreateNewList List=> Version_List
Folder.GetFiles Folder: Input_folder FileFilter: $'''%pattern%*''' IncludeSubfolders: False FailOnAccessDenied: True SortBy1: Folder.SortBy.NoSort SortDescending1: False SortBy2: Folder.SortBy.NoSort SortDescending2: False SortBy3: Folder.SortBy.NoSort SortDescending3: False Files=> Files
LOOP FOREACH file IN Files
Text.SplitText.SplitWithDelimiter Text: file.NameWithoutExtension CustomDelimiter: $'''-''' IsRegEx: False Result=> text_list
Text.Replace Text: text_list[text_list.Count - 1] TextToFind: $'''V''' IsRegEx: False IgnoreCase: False ReplaceWith: $'''%''%''' ActivateEscapeSequences: False Result=> version_number
Text.ToNumber Text: version_number.Trimmed Number=> version_no
Variables.AddItemToList Item: version_no List: Version_List
END
Variables.SortList.SortList List: Version_List
Variables.RemoveItemFromList.RemoveItemFromListByIndex ItemIndex: Version_List.Count - 1 List: Version_List
LOOP FOREACH index IN Version_List
Text.FromNumber Number: index DecimalPlaces: 0 UseThousandsSeparator: False FormattedNumber=> version_text
Text.Pad Text: version_text PadPosition: Text.PadPosition.Left PaddingText: 0 TotalLength: 2 PaddedText=> PaddedText2
File.Move Files: $'''C:\\Users\\Nived\\Desktop\\Temp\\Data\\%pattern%V%PaddedText2%.txt''' Destination: Output_folder IfFileExists: File.IfExists.Overwrite MovedFiles=> MovedFiles
END
END

Output got

Input folder

output folder

Note: I have used text file here, so while using the code , change the extension accordingly.

Thanks & Regards,
Nived N

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fedealbo 18 on at

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thank you so much for your answer, but I can't make it work
what am I doing wrong?

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Nived_Nambiar 18,129 Super User 2025 Season 2 on at

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Could you show what error you are getting ?

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