Mark Ashley Bell

07 Nov 2020

Copying files modified between two dates with Powershell

I've recently had the need to copy a subset of files modified between two dates, from a folder containing many thousands. Powershell makes this quite easy, but it took a little bit of figuring out, so I thought I'd share it!

I have this saved as Copy-Files-Modified-Between-Dates.ps1:

[CmdletBinding(SupportsShouldProcess=$true)]
param (
    [Parameter(Mandatory=$true)][string]$SourceDirectory,
    [Parameter(Mandatory=$true)][string]$DestinationDirectory,
    [Parameter(Mandatory=$true)][string]$ModifiedAfter,
    [Parameter(Mandatory=$true)][string]$ModifiedBefore
)

Get-ChildItem -Path $SourceDirectory |
Where-Object {
    $_.LastWriteTime `
        -gt (Get-Date $ModifiedAfter) `
        -and $_.LastWriteTime -lt (Get-Date $ModifiedBefore) } |
ForEach-Object { $_ | Copy-Item -Destination $DestinationDirectory }

Note that this cmdlet supports the standard PS -WhatIf parameter, so you can check the correct files are going to be copied before actually performing the copy.

You can run the command like this:

.\Copy-Files-Modified-Between-Dates `
    -SourceDirectory C:\Temp\all `
    -DestinationDirectory C:\Temp\subset `
    -ModifiedAfter '2020-11-01 18:00' `
    -ModifiedBefore '2020-11-02'

Questions or comments? Get in touch @markeebee, or email [Turn On Javascript To View Email Address].

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