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Building a Flow in Power Automate Desktop

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Posted on by JG-29031445-0

Hi everyone,

I’m trying to build a Power Automate Desktop (PAD) flow that does the following:

Monitor a root folder including all subfolders. New files are occasionally added in those subfolders.

Select only files whose names contain:
- a term in square brackets [ ... ], and
- a term in round parentheses ( ... ).

Copy those files to a staging folder.

In the staging folder, rename each file by removing the round parentheses and everything inside them (leave the square-bracketed part intact).

Copy the renamed file to a final destination folder.

Example

Input filename: Report Q3 [ClientA] (v2 draft).pdf

Desired renamed filename: Report Q3 [ClientA].pdf (no extra spaces before the extension)

Questions

What’s the cleanest PAD pattern to:

a) recurse through subfolders,

b) filter only files that have both [ ... ] and ( ... ) in their names, and

c) safely rename without leaving double spaces?

Are there recommended PAD actions/ordering to avoid file-lock or path issues?

Regex I’m considering

To check that a filename has both square brackets and parentheses (for an If condition):

\[[^\]]+\].*$[^)]+$

To remove the parentheses (and their content) during rename (Replace Text with regex):

\s*$[^)]*$ → replace with nothing

Optional cleanup to collapse double spaces after removal:

\s{2,} → single space

Optional: trim spaces before the extension (if needed), e.g., replace \s+\. with .

If anyone has a concise PAD recipe (actions order, examples, or screenshots) for this pattern, I’d really appreciate it. Thanks!

Categories:

Building flows

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Nived_Nambiar 18,138 Super User 2026 Season 1 on at

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Hi @JG-29031445-0

Try this PAD script

SET FolderPath TO $'''%''%''' Folder.GetFiles Folder: FolderPath FileFilter: $'''*[*]*;*(*)*''' IncludeSubfolders: True FailOnAccessDenied: True SortBy1: Folder.SortBy.NoSort SortDescending1: False SortBy2: Folder.SortBy.NoSort SortDescending2: False SortBy3: Folder.SortBy.NoSort SortDescending3: False Files=> Files LOOP FOREACH CurrentItem IN Files Text.Replace Text: CurrentItem.NameWithoutExtension TextToFind: $'''\\s*\$.*\$\\s*''' IsRegEx: True IgnoreCase: False ReplaceWith: $'''%''%''' ActivateEscapeSequences: False Result=> NewFileName File.RenameFiles.Rename Files: CurrentItem NewName: NewFileName KeepExtension: True IfFileExists: File.IfExists.Overwrite END

See whether this helps !

Thanks & Regards,
Nived N

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JG-29031445-0 4 on at

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Nived, Thank you very much for your reply. Is there a simple way to just paste the script you wrote, or do I need to build it step by step?

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Nived_Nambiar 18,138 Super User 2026 Season 1 on at

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Hi @JG-29031445-0

You can copy paste the script to designer panel in PAD -

Thanks & Regards,
Nived N

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Ayush Purohit 9 on at

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One method:

1. Get Files Recursively

Use Get files in folder

Root = your monitored folder

Include subfolders = ✅

Store result in FilesList

2. Loop Through Files

For Each CurrentFile in FilesList

3. Filter Files with Both [ … ] and ( … )

Use an If condition with regex match:

\[[^\]]+\].*$[^)]+$

In PAD:

If Regex.IsMatch(CurrentFile.Name, "\[[^\]]+\].*$[^)]+$")

This ensures the file has both square brackets and parentheses.

4. Copy File to Staging

Copy file(s) Source: %CurrentFile.FullName% Destination: %StagingFolder%\%CurrentFile.Name%

5. Clean File Name

Remove parentheses + contents

\s*$[^)]*$ → ""

Collapse double spaces (optional but recommended):

\s{2,} → " "

Trim spaces before extension (optional):

\s+\. → "."

Store result in %CleanName%.

In PAD, this looks like:

Set Variable → CleanName = RegexReplace(CurrentFile.Name, "\s*$[^)]*$", "") Set Variable → CleanName = RegexReplace(CleanName, "\s{2,}", " ") Set Variable → CleanName = RegexReplace(CleanName, "\s+\.", ".")

6. Rename in Staging

Rename file File: %StagingFolder%\%CurrentFile.Name% New Name: %StagingFolder%\%CleanName%

7. Copy to Final Destination

Copy file(s) Source: %StagingFolder%\%CleanName% Destination: %FinalFolder%\%CleanName%

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JG-29031445-0 4 on at

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Thank you very much!

I did something similar and it worked. The only thing that’s still missing is that I’d like to set the flow to run only on files that were created from yesterday onwards. I’m attaching what I wrote. Do you have an idea of what I’m missing? I really appreciate your professional assistance:

Folder.GetFiles Folder: $'''C:\\Users\\Jacob\\Downloads\\תיקייה יוצאת''' FileFilter: $'''*pdf''' IncludeSubfolders: True FailOnAccessDenied: True SortBy1: Folder.SortBy.NoSort SortDescending1: False SortBy2: Folder.SortBy.NoSort SortDescending2: False SortBy3: Folder.SortBy.NoSort SortDescending3: False Files=> Files
Text.ConvertTextToDateTime.ToDateTimeCustomFormat Text: $'''2025-08-15''' CustomFormat: $'''yyyy-MM-dd''' DateTime=> StartDate
LOOP FOREACH CurrentItem IN Files
IF Create.Date > StartDate THEN
END
IF Contains(CurrentItem.Name, $'''[''', True) THEN
File.Copy Files: CurrentItem.FullName Destination: $'''C:\\Users\\Jacob\\Downloads\\תיקיית ביניים''' IfFileExists: File.IfExists.DoNothing CopiedFiles=> CopiedFiles2
Text.Replace Text: CurrentItem.Name TextToFind: $'''[()]''' IsRegEx: True IgnoreCase: False ReplaceWith: $'''%''%''' ActivateEscapeSequences: False Result=> Replaced
File.RenameFiles.Rename Files: CopiedFiles2[0] NewName: $'''%Replaced%‎''' KeepExtension: True IfFileExists: File.IfExists.Overwrite RenamedFiles=> RenamedFiles
File.Copy Files: RenamedFiles Destination: $'''C:\\Users\\Jacob\\Downloads\\תיקיית קליטה''' IfFileExists: File.IfExists.Overwrite CopiedFiles=> CopiedFiles
END
END

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Nived_Nambiar 18,138 Super User 2026 Season 1 on at

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Hi @JG-29031445-0

Try this script

SET FolderPath TO $'''%''%''' Folder.GetFiles Folder: FolderPath FileFilter: $'''*[*]*;*(*)*''' IncludeSubfolders: True FailOnAccessDenied: True SortBy1: Folder.SortBy.NoSort SortDescending1: False SortBy2: Folder.SortBy.NoSort SortDescending2: False SortBy3: Folder.SortBy.NoSort SortDescending3: False Files=> Files DateTime.GetCurrentDateTime.Local DateTimeFormat: DateTime.DateTimeFormat.DateAndTime CurrentDateTime=> CurrentDateTime DateTime.Add DateTime: CurrentDateTime TimeToAdd: -1 TimeUnit: DateTime.TimeUnit.Days ResultedDate=> PrevDate LOOP FOREACH CurrentItem IN Files IF CurrentItem.CreationTime >= PrevDate THEN Text.Replace Text: CurrentItem.NameWithoutExtension TextToFind: $'''\\s*\$.*\$\\s*''' IsRegEx: True IgnoreCase: False ReplaceWith: $'''%''%''' ActivateEscapeSequences: False Result=> NewFileName File.RenameFiles.Rename Files: CurrentItem NewName: NewFileName KeepExtension: True IfFileExists: File.IfExists.Overwrite END END

Thanks & Regards,
Nived N

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If yes, please mark it as the solution by selecting the checkbox in the discussion thread.
Your feedback motivates me to keep contributing. Thank you!

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