[windows] Create folder with batch but only if it doesn't already exist

Can anybody tell me how to do the following in in a Windows batch script? (*.bat):

• Create a folder only if it doesn't already exist

In more detail, I want to create a folder named VTS on the C:\ drive, but only if that folder doesn't already exist. I don't want to overwrite the contents of the folder if it already exists and the batch is executed.

You can use:

if not exist "C:\VTS\" mkdir "C:\VTS"

You can also expand the code to replace any missing expected files.

if not exist "C:\VTS\important.file" echo. > "C:\VTS\important.file"

i created this for my script I use in my work for eyebeam.

:CREATES A CHECK VARIABLE

set lookup=0

:CHECKS IF THE FOLDER ALREADY EXIST"

IF EXIST "%UserProfile%\AppData\Local\CounterPath\RegNow Enhanced\default_user\" (set lookup=1)

:IF CHECK is still 0 which means does not exist. It creates the folder

IF %lookup%==0 START "" mkdir "%UserProfile%\AppData\Local\CounterPath\RegNow Enhanced\default_user\"

Just call mkdir C:\VTS no matter what. It will simply report that the subdirectory already exists.

Edit: As others have noted, this does set the %ERRORLEVEL% if the folder already exists. If your batch (or any processes calling it) doesn't care about the error level, this method works nicely. Since the question made no mention of avoiding the error level, this answer is perfectly valid. It fulfills the needs of creating the folder if it doesn't exist, and it doesn't overwrite the contents of an existing folder. Otherwise follow Martin Schapendonk's answer.

This should work for you:

IF NOT EXIST "\path\to\your\folder" md \path\to\your\folder

However, there is another method, but it may not be 100% useful:

md \path\to\your\folder >NUL 2>NUL

This one creates the folder, but does not show the error output if folder exists. I highly recommend that you use the first one. The second one is if you have problems with the other.

You just use this: if not exist "C:\VTS\" mkdir C:\VTS it wll create a directory only if the folder does not exist.

Note that this existence test will return true only if VTS exists and is a directory. If it is not there, or is there as a file, the mkdir command will run, and should cause an error. You might want to check for whether VTS exists as a file as well.

I use this way, you should put a backslash at the end of the directory name to avoid that place exists in a file without extension with the same name as the directory you specified, never use "C:\VTS" because it can a file exists with the name "VTS" saved in "C:" partition, the correct way is to use "C:\VTS\", check out the backslash after the VTS, so is the right way.

@echo off
@break off
@title Create folder with batch but only if it doesn't already exist - D3F4ULT
@color 0a
@cls

setlocal EnableDelayedExpansion

if not exist "C:\VTS\" (
  mkdir "C:\VTS\"
  if "!errorlevel!" EQU "0" (
    echo Folder created successfully
  ) else (
    echo Error while creating folder
  )
) else (
  echo Folder already exists
)

pause
exit

set myDIR=LOG
IF not exist %myDIR% (mkdir %myDIR%)

mkdir C:\VTS 2> NUL

create a folder called VTS and output A subdirectory or file TEST already exists to NUL.

or

(C:&(mkdir "C:\VTS" 2> NUL))&

change the drive letter to C:, mkdir, output error to NUL and run the next command.

if exist C:\VTS\NUL echo "Folder already exists"

if not exist C:\VTS\NUL echo "Folder does not exist"

See also https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/65994

(Update March 7, 2018; Microsoft article is down, archive on https://web.archive.org/web/20150609092521/https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/65994 )