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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-06-12T15:45:15+00:00

I’ve tried Fastcopy and Robocopy and both seem to be able to do either

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I’ve tried Fastcopy and Robocopy and both seem to be able to do either one of those operation but not both.

For files like (BEFORE COPYING)

D:\SYMLINKSOURCE\file1 <<symlink from D:\Source\file1 **edit
D:\SYMLINKSOURCE\file2 <<symlink from D:\Source\file1 **edit

D:\DESTINATIONxx\file2 <<not a symlink

I want to copy D:\SYMLINKSOURCE\* to D:\DESTINATIONxx but without overwriting D:\DESTINATIONxx\file1 such that after copying it looks like

(AFTER COPYING)
D:\SYMLINKSOURCE\file1 <<symlink from D:\Source\file1
D:\SYMLINKSOURCE\file2 <<symlink from D:\Source\file2

D:\DESTINATIONxx\file1 <<symlink from D:\Source\file1
D:\DESTINATIONxx\file2 <<not a symlink

I tried this to not overwrite but it doesn’t preserve Symbolic links and instead copies resolved files Copy files without overwrite

robocopy "D:\SYMLINKSOURCE" "D:\DESTINATION" /E /XC /XN /XO

(AFTER COPYING)
D:\SYMLINKSOURCE\file1 <<symlink from D:\Source\file1
D:\SYMLINKSOURCE\file2 <<symlink from D:\Source\file2

D:\DESTINATIONxx\file1 <<not a symlink < i wanted this as symlink
D:\DESTINATIONxx\file2 <<not a symlink

and adding /SL to preserve symlinks overwrites everything.

robocopy "D:\SYMLINKSOURCE" "D:\DESTINATION" /E /XC /XN /XO /SL

(AFTER COPYING)
D:\SYMLINKSOURCE\file1 <<symlink from D:\Source\file1
D:\SYMLINKSOURCE\file2 <<symlink from D:\Source\file2

D:\DESTINATIONxx\file1 <<symlink from D:\Source\file1
D:\DESTINATIONxx\file2 <<symlink from D:\Source\file1 < i did not want this overwritten

Is there any way I can achieve what I want?

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    The only way I can see on how to do this would be to use two seperate robocopy’s first for the non-link files and later for the link-files you want to copy as links. Assuming that there are more normal files than links, you could run your:

    robocopy "D:\SYMLINKSOURCE" "D:\DESTINATION" /E /XC /XN /XO

    Then copying the actual links by naming the individually (or using some naming convention, like sl-file1 and usa a sl* pattern) and thus fixing the erroneously overwritten links with: 

    robocopy "D:\SYMLINKSOURCE\file1" "D:\DESTINATION" /E /XC /XN /XO /SL
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