Copy files without overwrite

Belisarius' solution is good.

To elaborate on that slightly terse answer:

  • /E makes Robocopy recursively copy subdirectories, including empty ones.
  • /XC excludes existing files with the same timestamp, but different file sizes. Robocopy normally overwrites those.
  • /XN excludes existing files newer than the copy in the source directory. Robocopy normally overwrites those.
  • /XO excludes existing files older than the copy in the source directory. Robocopy normally overwrites those.

With the Changed, Older, and Newer classes excluded, Robocopy does exactly what the original poster wants - without needing to load a scripting environment.


Robocopy, or "Robust File Copy", is a command-line directory replication command. It has been available as part of the Windows Resource Kit starting with Windows NT 4.0, and was introduced as a standard feature of Windows Vista, Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008.

   robocopy c:\Sourcepath c:\Destpath /E /XC /XN /XO

To elaborate (using Hydrargyrum, HailGallaxar and Andy Schmidt answers):

  • /E makes Robocopy recursively copy subdirectories, including empty ones.
  • /XC excludes existing files with the same timestamp, but different file sizes. Robocopy normally overwrites those.
  • /XN excludes existing files newer than the copy in the destination directory. Robocopy normally overwrites those.
  • /XO excludes existing files older than the copy in the destination directory. Robocopy normally overwrites those.

With the Changed, Older, and Newer classes excluded, Robocopy does exactly what the original poster wants - without needing to load a scripting environment.

References: Technet, Wikipedia
Download from: Microsoft Download Link (Link last verified on Mar 30, 2016)


You can try this:

echo n | copy /-y <SOURCE> <DESTINATION>

-y simply prompts before overwriting and we can pipe n to all those questions. So this would in essence just copy non-existing files. :)