Introduction
Cloning a folder structure, or duplicating a large set of files, is a rarely required task because sharing is normally the best way to achieve any collaborative goal. There are, though, some legitimate times when such a need arises. You might want to transfer files between users/domains, out of a team-drive, or make a working copy of a set of template files (e.g. re-using them on a new project).
When it is required, you will quickly find it’s a very laborious and boring task if you have to do it manually. With Folders you can achieve the same outcome in minutes, rather than hours.
Process
You can clone an existing folder, or use our search tool to more deftly select the files you wish to clone. You could even use tags to identify common templates you might wish to clone for new projects!
Once you have chosen your source, you can click on the Clone command in the Results menu to begin the process. Remember that, if you need to remove a small number of files from the folder/results (as you don’t want to clone them), you can use the small remove icon (×) on the far right of the Actions column to clear those items from the current view. Those items will then not be cloned.
The clone dialog (shown above) can be customised in the following ways:
- Name Prefix - If you would like all your cloned files to be prefixed with the same string (e.g. the name of your new project), then enter this here.
- Batch Size - If you would like Folders to create a log of the cloning process, then set this field to greater than zero. Log entries will be written to a Google Sheet after each batch is complete, so for faster results when processing a large number of items, this should be set to a relatively high number (50 is a sensible figure).
- Output To - This lets you select the target folder where you would like your cloned files to be placed.
- Clone Folders - Ticking this option means that the folder structure of your files will be retained in the cloned folder (e.g. folders will be created to match folders in your source tree).
- Merge - If you have previously run the clone operation and it created a folder structure, you can use the merge option to have new files cloned into this structure (this is useful if you need to re-run the clone after some new files have been created in your source tree).
Properties - When this option is ticked, tags/properties of the source items will also be copied into your cloned versions (essential if you use tags to help manage confidentiality and importance).