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Recursively Move files

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Posted on by Rhys

I'm new to power automate and seem to be struggling with something that is very easy to do in other programming languages. I would normally just move files from /updated/ to /live/ but I can seem to copy recursively to sub directories.

I have folder permissions set up for users on the "live" directory folders so do not want to overwrite this each time.

I want to move new files into an existing file structure, the folder structure I'm moving from matches the one I'm moving too.

For example

Live reports sit in

/live/report1folder/reportX.xlsx

/live/report1folder/reportY.xlsx

/live/report2folder/reportS.xlsx

/live/report2folder/reportP.xlsx

Each month I want to be able to upload the below and run a flow to move the files from /updated to /live

/updated/report1folder/reportX.xlsx

/updated/report1folder/reportY.xlsx

/updated/report2folder/reportS.xlsx

/updated/report2folder/reportP.xlsx

I've tried a few examples with List File properties and parameterising but can't get them to do the job.

Is this possible?

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Using flows

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v-LilyW-msft on at

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Hi @Rhys

According to your description, you want to move the files from Update folder to live folder and preserve the files structure. If any misunderstanding, please kindly let me know.

I set up a flow, you can refer to below screenshots to see if it helps.

Expression:split(outputs('Compose'),'/')

Expression:last(take(outputs('Compose_3'),add(length(outputs('Compose_3')),-1)))

After Flow runs, the file in Updated folder will be moved to live folder.

Hope the content above may help you.

Best Regards

If my reply helps, then please consider Accept it as the solution to help the other members find it more quickly.

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Rhys 6 on at

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Hi
You logic has helped me massively however my data sits in nested folders which I think makes this a bit easier. I just need to add a condition to check if folder contains any files as well as if its a folder as it fails when looping over report1folder.

So I've adjusted what you have given me, on compose 2 I'm doing a
replace(outputs('Compose'),'updated/','')
and then using this as the new folder path as the copy to location

updated example
Live reports sit in
/report1folder/subfolder1/reportX.xlsx
/report1folder/subfolder1/reportY.xlsx
/report2folder/subfolder2/reportS.xlsx
/report2folder/subfolder2/reportP.xlsx

Each month I want to be able to upload the below and run a flow to move the files from /updated to /live
/updated/report1folder/subfolder1/reportX.xlsx
/updated/report1folder/subfolder1/reportY.xlsx
/updated/report2folder/subfolder2/reportS.xlsx
/updated/report2folder/subfolder2/reportP.xlsx

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Rhys 6 on at

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I've accepted your answer as it worked for the example.

For nested folder's I went with this.

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