Copy always to output directory does not work

In the file properties in Visual Studio, set:

Build action: None

Copy to output directory: Copy always


Changes to non-source code files don't cause a rebuild to occur - they aren't considered when the compiler does it's out of date checking.

Try forcing a complete rebuild by deleting your output directory completely (sometimes doing this from within Visual Studio isn't complete).

It may be that the files haven't been copied across because a full build hasn't been run.


Did you mark them as content?


None of this worked for my WPF project. You need to mark it Content + Copy Always.

Refer to this page for details on the different Visual Studio file properties.