Create new empty directory tree from existing tree with files

find . -type d -exec mkdir -p ~/to/{} \;

Taken from @whitequark's answer to to this question: Copy directory structure without copying files, on Mac OS X

rsync -av -f"+ */" -f"- *" /.../SOURCE /.../DESTINATION

Another approach is use the tree which is pretty handy and navigating directory trees based on its strong options. There are options for directory only, exclude empty directories, exclude names with pattern, include only names with pattern, etc. Check out man tree

Advantage: you can edit or review the list, or if you do a lot of scripting and create a batch of empty directories frequently

Approach: create a list of directories using tree, use that list as an arguments input to mkdir

tree -dfi --noreport > some_dir_file.txt

-dfi lists only directories, prints full path for each name, makes tree not print the indentation lines,

--noreport Omits printing of the file and directory report at the end of the tree listing, just to make the output file not contain any fluff

Then go to the destination where you want the empty directories and execute

xargs mkdir < some_dir_file.txt