getting all folders and files inside, but without the forms folder

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Posted on by LisKr

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Hi,

I try to build a flow to get all the folders and their files in a library and later upload them as attachments to the corresponding list items. So at first I need to know which folders are in the library and at a second step get all the files, folder by folder.

I tried to achieve that by a list folder action to get the folders and then use another list folder action for each folder to get the files inside.

My specific problem now is, that it always throws an error at the hidden forms folder. Is there any way I can exclude it from the actions? There's no field for filters in the actions, so I'm at a loss at how to proceed or what to change.

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Business Process Flows

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LisKr 304 on at

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Re: getting all folders and files inside, but without the forms folder

Hi @rzaneti ,
That worked, thank you for your help! Exactly what I needed!
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rzaneti 4,096 Super User 2025 Season 1 on at

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Re: getting all folders and files inside, but without the forms folder

Hi @LisKr ,

Yes, the flow looks more clear!!

To prevent the error for this single item where the flow fails (and to any other items that fails for same reason in production), you can include the steps to delete attachments for the List item. You can insert the actions (Get attachments and loop to delete each attachment) at the beginning of your "Apply to each" loop.
LisKr 304 on at

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Re: getting all folders and files inside, but without the forms folder

I did restructure the flow today, which made it less complicated in my opinion. It looks now like this:

It worked nicely for most items, only one failed again with the same error. I still don't get why, but at least I like the flow structure better now.
LisKr 304 on at

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Re: getting all folders and files inside, but without the forms folder

HI @rzaneti ,
thanks for your test and suggestion.
I checked the flow again and cannot find out what the cause for the error is. A few of the elements do exist multiple times, but never for the same list item. Could that somehow cause the error, although that doesn't make sense to me?

Your suggestion with deleting everything in the fist place sounds suitable for me. However, I couldn't really find out how to integrate it with my existing flow to achieve my needs. Could you somehow help me with that?

Here's again what the flow should do in the end:
1. get all the files in each folder of my library. The folders are named after the ID of the list item the files belong to (e.g. folder "1" belongs to the item with ID 1). In addition to that, there's also a column for each file inside the folder, that also holds the ID. So one of these possibilities should be used to get the ID.
2. add all files from the first step as attachments to the corresponding list items (with the same name and content)
rzaneti 4,096 Super User 2025 Season 1 on at

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Re: getting all folders and files inside, but without the forms folder

Hi @LisKr ,

Thank you for sharing the images.

I ran some tests from my end, and I found no problems in adding multiple attachments to a single List item, in a similar way as you did. However, if I add the same files twice, I got the same error as you, since the files already exist for that specific item.

After checking your flow, it looks like everything is ok and you are not actually adding the same files twice to the same item. However, I would recommend you to double check the inputs for your loops and add attachments action, to make sure that you didn't include an dynamic content from another SharePoint action by mistake.

If you don't find anything in this investigation and the error persists, I found this workaround, which is basically deleting all current List item attachments and then adding it again. Please, do not proceed with this alternative if you have other attachments in the Item that aren't uploaded by this flow.

This is the flow overview:

I'm first accessing the files inside a folder and then mapping it, to get its file content:

Then I'm getting the attachments from a List item. In my case, I hardcoded the List item ID, but you must set it dynamically from the values returned by Get items action. After testing if the length of Get Attachments body is greater than zero (which means that the item has at least 1 attachment), I'm also looping the output of these attachments and deleting each of them.

As a last step, out of the attachments loop and the condition, I'm finally inserting the attachment:

Finally, we can make some changes in this flow to make sure that only the attachments that match to the name of the filles that you want to upload 🙂 Let me know if this second approach fits better to your needs and I can draft a flow for that.

Let me know if it works for you or if you need any additional help!

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LisKr 304 on at

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Re: getting all folders and files inside, but without the forms folder

It happened to all files but two. One of these actually completed without problems and the other one had another error message "unexpected error. Request to azure resource manager failed" and the actions in the loop were all skipped.

And below you have my flow configuration. I added translations/explanations to the steps, let me know if you need further information.
rzaneti 4,096 Super User 2025 Season 1 on at

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Re: getting all folders and files inside, but without the forms folder

Hi @LisKr ,

I'm glad that the first problem was solved!

About the attachment issue, is this happening to all of the files, or only to a few of them?

And yes, it will be very helpful to have some screenshots of your flow 🙂
LisKr 304 on at

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Re: getting all folders and files inside, but without the forms folder

Hi @rzaneti ,

thank you for your reply, that solution seems to work! I don't know why I didn't think of that myself😅

Sadly, I get an error in the "no" block at the "add attachment" action and the flow fails. Maybe you could help me with that, too?
The error message just states "bad request" and in the outputs it says "The specified name is already in use.\n\nThe document or folder name was not changed. To change the name to a different value, close this dialog and edit the properties of the document or folder." But since the list elements don't have any attachments before this flow runs, it can't be that the name is already in use.
And on top of that, the flow still does add the attachments, so I don't get why it throws the error and fails, when in fact it seems to complete as it should?!

Would it maybe help, if I shared screenshots of the configuration of my flow?
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rzaneti 4,096 Super User 2025 Season 1 on at

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Re: getting all folders and files inside, but without the forms folder

Hi @LisKr ,

If it is only one folder, you can work with a Condition inside your Apply to each loop to test if the folder name matches to this "hidden forms". You can leave the "If yes" block empty and allocate the "Get all the files" in the "If no" block, so if the current iterated folder is the "hidden forms", Power Automate will do nothing.

If you have any trouble to implement the solution above, please share an image of your current flow design and I will be happy in helping you 🙂

Let me know if it works for you or if you need any additional help!

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If this is the answer for your question, please mark the post as Solved.
If this answer helps you in any way, please give it a like.

http://digitalmill.net/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/raphael-haus-zaneti/