Copy folder structure without files from one location to another

Question

I want to create a clone of the structure of our multi-terabyte file server   I know that cp --parents can move a file and it s parent structure  but is there any way to copy the directory structure intact    I want to copy to a linux system and our file server is CIFS mounted there

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1 line solution  find   -type d -exec mkdir -p  path to copy directory tree

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The following solution worked well for me in various environments   sourceDir  some directory  targetDir  any other directory   find   sourceDir  -type d   sed -e  s  sourceDir  targetDir     xargs mkdir -p

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If you can get access from a Windows machine  you can use xcopy with  T and  E to copy just the folder structure  the  E includes empty folders   http   ss64 com nt xcopy html   EDIT    This one uses rsync to recreate the directory structure but without the files  http   psung blogspot com 2008 05 copying-directory-trees-with-rsync html  Might actually be better

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cd  path to directories  amp  amp  find   -type d -exec mkdir -p --  path to backup

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This works   find    lt SOURCE DIR gt   -type d   sed  s      lt SOURCE DIR gt   g    xargs -I    mkdir -p  lt DEST DIR gt         Just replace SOURCE DIR and DEST DIR

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Substitute target dir and source dir with the appropriate values   cd target dir  amp  amp   cd source dir  find   -type d   -name      xargs -i mkdir -p        Tested on OSX Ubuntu

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You could do something like   find   -type d  gt  dirs txt   to create the list of directories  then  xargs mkdir -p  lt  dirs txt   to create the directories on the destination

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A python script from Sergiy Kolodyazhnyy posted on Copy only folders not files       usr bin env python import os sys dirs   r for r s f in os walk      if r         for i in dirs      os makedirs os path join sys argv 1  i      or from the shell   python -c  import os sys dirs   r for r s f in os walk      if r          os makedirs os path join sys argv 1  i   for i in dirs     new destination   FYI    Copy top level folder structure without copying files in linux How do I copy a directory tree but not the files in Linux

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This solves even the problem with whitespaces   In the original source dir   find   -type d -exec echo            gt  dirs2 txt   then recreate it in the newly created dir   mkdir -p  lt     lt SOURCEDIR gt  dirs2 txt

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Here is a solution in php that    copies the directories  not recursively  only one level  preserves permissions unlike the rsync solution  is fast even with directories containing thousands of files as it does not even go into the folders has no problems with spaces should be easy to read and adjust   Create a file like syncDirs php with this content    lt  php foreach  new DirectoryIterator  argv 1   as  f        if  f- gt isDot        f- gt isDir    continue          mkdir  argv 2       f- gt getFilename     f- gt getPerms             chown  argv 2       f- gt getFilename     f- gt getOwner             chgrp  argv 2       f- gt getFilename     f- gt getGroup         Run it as user that has enough rights   sudo php syncDirs php  var source  var destination

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This copy the directories and files attributes  but not the files data   cp -R --attributes-only SOURCE DEST   Then you can delete the files attributes if you are not interested in them   find DEST -type f -exec rm

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Here is a simple solution using rsync   rsync -av -f       -f -      source    target     one line no problems with spaces preserve permissions   I found this solution there

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I dunno if you are looking for a solution on Linux  If so  you can try this     mkdir destdir   cd sourcedir   find   -type d   cpio -pdvm destdir

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find source  -type f    rsync -a --exclude-from - source  target    Copy dir only with associated permission and ownership

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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  gt  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  lt  some dir file txt

[linux] Copy folder structure (without files) from one location to another

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