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Power Platform Community / Forums / Power Automate / Find user who has serv...
Power Automate
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Find user who has server drive file open

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Posted on by 21

I have some folders located on a shared server drive that I'm trying to move to an "archive" folder. After these folders are moved, I'm copying folders from a cloud location to the same server drive to replace those initial folders with the latest contents.

 

The issue I'm running into for the first part is when moving the initial folders to the archive folder. If anyone in the organization has one of the shared server drive files open the Power Automate Desktop flow will fail with "Problem while executing action 'Move'. Can't move folder [folder] ... System.IO.IOException: Access to the path [path] is denied. at System.IO.Directory.InternalMove..."

 

I'm able to have our Systems team research the folder from the error message and they can find the person who has one of the sub-files open. Once the user closes out of the file the flow will run successfully. I wanted to know if anyone has run into this before and/or knows of a way I can use Power Automate Desktop to tell me the user who has one of the files open in the specific folder when I get this error. Or if you have another solution to move the existing folders.

 

Please let me know if you need any additional info. Thank you!

  • Nived_Nambiar Profile Picture
    18,138 Super User 2026 Season 1 on at

    Hi @choffman 

     

    Try to utilize Powershell script in PAD to see which users are accessing the file 

     

    Thanks & Regards,

    Nived N 🚀

    LinkedIn: Nived N's LinkedIn
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    🔍 Found my answer helpful? Please consider marking it as the solution!
    Your appreciation keeps me motivated. Thank you! 🙌

     

  • choffman Profile Picture
    21 on at

    Hi @Nived_Nambiar -

     

    Thank you for reviewing my issue and making a suggestion. I looked into a PowerShell script and it seems like I don't have the correct permissions to run the script. I wasn't sure if there was some other Windows service Power Automate could take advantage of to find the users who have a file open.

     

    I'll work on getting my permissions updated and will comment back to this thread when I have a PowerShell script to find these users.

     

    Please let me know if you think of anything else!

     

    Thanks again!

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