How to merge folders in Windows 7

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One small tips for the day, as probably you’ve experienced many times before, when you try to merge two folders into one you will probably copy/past or cut/past all the content inside one folder into another folder. Well there is actually  an easy way, a much easier time saving way (especially when you want to merge two large folders and their files/documents/subdirectories) It applies when the two folder are in the same leave, meaning they are under the same root or higher directory.

Just simply rename the folder into the same name as another folder, for example here I have two folders “images” and “tinymce” just rename one of them into the same name, in this case I want to merge them into both “images” folder.

replacemergefolderinWindows7 - How to merge folders in Windows 7

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8 COMMENTS

  1. id like to know if you can merge many folders at once? without them being named music,
    music (1), music (2). and so fourth. i id like to rename as many as fifty folders at once and end up with 1 folder with all the files of those fifty. so far i have to rename them one by one. any free software that might achieve this? any insight would be helpful. thanks.

    • You merge the folder 2 at a time, I can't imagine how it is possible to merge 3 or more at the same time, since in order to do so you first to have at least 2 or more folder with the same name, that's not going to happen.

      So yes you can merge the music folder just copy and past the the folder into the same directory, with both of the folder have the same name. In your case you don't want to name them music(1) or music(2) just change to one same name and Windows will automatically merge them into one.

      Cheers

  2. I have a related but different folder merge issue. All of the forums I’ve checked simply have you rename a folder within the same root in order to provoke a request to merrge the folders. I did this when transferring old data from my Vista .old folders and found that for some it worked and for others it didn’t. Since some folders were in English and the target folders were in French, I thought that this was the issue, but no, some merged fine despite the different languages. Others, like the Mes vidéos/Videos & Mes images/Photos (Target/Old folder name) wouldn’t merge, so I renamed then My Videos (as I did for the others that worked) and still it didn’t work and I even renamed them exactly as in French (Mes vidéos) and still no merge. I actually have four folders now with the sames names, 2 -Mes vidéos and 2-Mes images. I have checked spacing and even copied one name to the other folder, and still I have two sets of folders with exactly the same names in the same root.

    Any ideas how to solve this?

  3. If you need to merge more than two folders together use PowerShell (so pleased the included this in Win7!).
    Use the Copy-Item or Move-Item cmdlets to shift the content then delete the remaining empty folders.
    In the simplest form, if I have c:docs, c:docs_1, c:docs_2, c:docs_3, etc. then in PowerShell at c: do:
    Copy-Item .docs_**.* .docs
    Once that’s done delete the docs_* folders.
    Obviously, using wildcards only works if you have some sort of standard name across the folders…..

    • Hi Dan, that sounds like a really useful thing to know. Think you might be able to write a little step-by-step sort of instruction? ‘Cos I’ve never heard of powershell and so what you’ve written there I can’t really follow.

      Cheers!
      Rory

  4. No I have lots of space on the Droid 3,but I have not learned a lot of the apps yet. Specific software ie: win 7 are not apps that come with. Now I am sure there is some app that is similar but free not sure. You gotta go read each one b4 allowing uploads. Not sure bout u, but I hate mystery fees, esp. When your phone contractor wants some of these as they get a kickback. Just mindfull of surprise $ on next bill!

  5. perhaps you could put the other folders you want to merge as subfolders in the one you eventually rename, so you have Folders 1-4, put 2, 3 & 4 in 1, then rename the folders you want to merge them with to 2, 3 & 4 and make sure they are in the same level within 1, then rename the root folder to 1, I think this will then merge the lot?

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