Copy and paste files through clipboard in Powershell

Question

In the folder E:\Files there are 2 files, which I want to copy and paste into D:\Dest:

E:\Files\

• File1.txt
• File2.txt

Using the keyboard I would simply select the 2 files, push ctrl+c, and in the destination folder D:\Dest\ I then push ctrl+v.

Now I want to achieve this using Powershell. So I copy the files into the clipboard:

Set-Clipboard -Path E:\Files\*

But how to paste those files now into the destination folder? Obviously, I will need Get-Clipboard. But it's not quite clear to me, how to use it, in order to paste the files.

I know I could copy the contents of these 2 files and then by using Set-Content create those files in D:\Dest\ on my own and copy the content into them. But is there any direct way? Because with Set-Clipboard those files already are in the clipboard. They just need to be pasted. I can use ctrl+v and it works. But I want to paste them through Powershell. Any ideas?

Answer 1

Here's the script I use to paste files/directories:

$fileDrop = get-clipboard -Format FileDropList 
if($fileDrop -eq $null)
{
    write-host "No files on the clipboard"
    return
}

foreach($file in $fileDrop)
{
    if($file.Mode.StartsWith("d"))
    {
        $source = join-path $file.Directory $file.Name
        $e = "copy-item -Recurse $source $($file.Name)"
        $e
        Invoke-Expression $e
    }
    else
    {
        $file.Name
        $file | copy-item
    }
}

Answer 2

You could use the .NET Clipboard class:

Add-Type -AssemblyName System.Windows.Forms

$files = [System.Collections.Specialized.StringCollection]::new()
$files.Add('YOUR_FILE_PATH_HERE')

[System.Windows.Forms.Clipboard]::SetFileDropList($files)

This copies YOUR_FILE_PATH_HERE to the local clipboard.

You could use this, for example, when you're in a local terminal and need to copy file(s) to a remote session without PowerShell remoting (e.g., RDP or Citrix) without opening the directory in Explorer.

It's a little unwieldy, so if I used it a lot, I'd probably put it in a function like Copy-FileToClipboard and add it to my PowerShell profile.