Make a Copy of Folders in Google Drive with Google Scripts

March 30, 2017

In Google Drive, there’s no easy way to clone a folder. You can make a copy of individual files but there’s no command for creating duplicate folders that are a mirror of another folder. Fortunately, there’s Google Script to the rescue. The only downside is that the script execution may time out if you are trying to copy a large folder with several sub-folders and files.

function start() {
  var sourceFolder = 'source';
  var targetFolder = 'target';

  var source = DriveApp.getFoldersByName(sourceFolder);
  var target = DriveApp.createFolder(targetFolder);

  if (source.hasNext()) {
    copyFolder(source.next(), target);
  }
}

function copyFolder(source, target) {
  var folders = source.getFolders();
  var files = source.getFiles();

  while (files.hasNext()) {
    var file = files.next();
    file.makeCopy(file.getName(), target);
  }

  while (folders.hasNext()) {
    var subFolder = folders.next();
    var folderName = subFolder.getName();
    var targetFolder = target.createFolder(folderName);
    copyFolder(subFolder, targetFolder);
  }
}

Google Apps Script Google Drive

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Amit Agarwal

Google Developer Expert, Google Cloud Champion

Amit Agarwal is a Google Developer Expert in Google Workspace and Google Apps Script. He holds an engineering degree in Computer Science (I.I.T.) and is the first professional blogger in India.

Amit has developed several popular Google add-ons including Mail Merge for Gmail and Document Studio. Read more on Lifehacker and YourStory