Question

I’m trying to create a standardised directory structure to prepare a drive ready for tidying and migration to a new location. What I’m looking to do is run a batch file in the root of the drive which works through all subdirectories and creates a new folder called ‘Archive’ in each of them ready for files to be tidied up and later moved or deleted.

I’m trying to use FOR /F with an MD command to make the folders, but I’m really struggling to understand the syntax re. tokens and variables. I’m trying to adapt from something like

for /f "tokens=*" %a in ('dir /b /s /a-d') do @copy "%a" "c:\Single-Folder"

which I nabbed from over here replacing @copy with @md… but I’m really out of my depth.

Any offers of help much appreciated

Answer 1

The command you are using:

dir /b /s /a-d

lists everything except directories (the – sign negates the attribute). So the right command you have to use is this:

dir /b /s /ad

(try it yourself!).

FOR /F reads the output of the dir command, one line of text at a time. tokens=* will get the whole line (removing leading spaces). I think you need this:

for /f "tokens=*" %a in ('dir /b /s /ad') do @echo mkdir "%a\Archive"

when you are sure it is right, remove the echo command to actually execute the mkdir.