3 Ways To Copy Entire Folder In PHP (Quick Examples)

Welcome to a quick tutorial and examples of how to copy an entire folder in PHP. Having trouble with copying files in PHP? Can’t find a native function that will copy entire folders?

That covers the basics, but how can we recursively copy the sub-folders too? Read on for more examples!

 

 

TABLE OF CONTENTS

 

 

EXAMPLE CODE DOWNLOAD

Source code on GitHub Gist

Just click on “download zip” or do a git clone. I have released it under the MIT license, so feel free to build on top of it or use it in your own project.

 

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1) RECURSIVE COPY FOLDER USING GLOB

<?php
// (A) COPY ENTIRE FOLDER
function copyfolder ($from, $to, $ext="*") {
  // (A1) SOURCE FOLDER CHECK
  if (!is_dir($from)) { exit("$from does not exist"); }
 
  // (A2) CREATE DESTINATION FOLDER
  if (!is_dir($to)) {
    if (!mkdir($to)) { exit("Failed to create $to"); };
    echo "$to created\r\n";
  }
 
  // (A3) GET ALL FILES + FOLDERS IN SOURCE
  $all = glob("$from$ext", GLOB_MARK);
  print_r($all);
 
  // (A4) COPY FILES + RECURSIVE INTERNAL FOLDERS
  if (count($all)>0) { foreach ($all as $a) {
    $ff = basename($a); // CURRENT FILE/FOLDER
    if (is_dir($a)) {
      copyfolder("$from$ff/", "$to$ff/");
    } else {
      if (!copy($a, "$to$ff")) { exit("Error copying $a to $to$ff"); }
      echo "$a copied to $to$ff\r\n";
    }
  }}
}
 
// (B) GO!
copyfolder("C:/SOURCE/", "C:/TARGET/");

This is pretty much the “full version” of the snippet in the introduction. Not going to explain line-by-line, but the essentials are:

• Get all the files and folders inside the source folder – $all = glob("$from$ext", GLOB_MARK);
• Loop through all the files and folders – foreach ($all as $a) { ... }
• If it is a folder, we call the function recursively to dig in – if (is_dir($a)) { copyfolder(SOURCE, DESTINATION); }
• If it is a file, simply copy it to the destination folder – copy(SOURCE, DESTINATION);

This script will work just fine, but there is a potential problem with it. If the folder contains too many files, glob() can break the process with an “out-of-memory” error – This is where the next solution comes in handy.

 

 

2) RECURSIVE COPY FOLDER USING READDIR

<?php
// (A) COPY ENTIRE FOLDER
function copyfolder ($from, $to) {
  // (A1) SOURCE FOLDER CHECK
  if (!is_dir($from)) { exit("$from does not exist"); }
 
  // (A2) CREATE DESTINATION FOLDER
  if (!is_dir($to)) {
    if (!mkdir($to)) { exit("Failed to create $to"); };
    echo "$to created\r\n";
  }
 
  // (A3) COPY FILES + RECURSIVE INTERNAL FOLDERS
  $dir = opendir($from);
  while (($ff = readdir($dir)) !== false) { if ($ff!="." && $ff!="..") {
    if (is_dir("$from$ff")) {
      copyfolder("$from$ff/", "$to$ff/");
    } else {
      if (!copy("$from$ff", "$to$ff")) { exit("Error copying $from$ff to $to$ff"); }
      echo "$from$ff copied to $to$ff\r\n";
    }
  }}
  closedir($dir);
}
 
// (B) GO!
copyfolder("C:/SOURCE/", "C:/TARGET/");

Look no further, this is the same recursive mechanic. The difference here is that we are using $ff = readdir($dir) to read the folders one by one – This is a safer alternative to deal with massive folders.

 

 

3) COPY FOLDER USING OS COMMAND

<?php
// (A) SOURCE & TARGET
$from = "C:\\SOURCE";
$to = "C:\\TARGET";
 
// (B) COPY COMMAND
$os = strtolower(PHP_OS_FAMILY); // PHP 7.2 & ABOVE ONLY
$cmd = "";
if ($os == "windows") { $cmd = "Xcopy $from $to /E/H/C/I"; }
if ($os =="linux") { $cmd = "cp -R $from $to"; }
if ($cmd=="") { exit("Error copying"); }
 
// (C) RUN!
echo $cmd;
echo exec($cmd);

Lastly, here is the so-called “best alternative” – Just run a terminal command to copy the files, let the OS deal with it.

P.S. You need to give PHP permission to run the terminal command though.

 

 

 

LINKS & REFERENCES

• Copy – PHP
• Glob – PHP
• Read Dir – PHP
• Exec – PHP