Installation

npm install clonefile [-g]

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Usage

In a Terminal

$> clonefile <source> <target> [options] 

$> clonefile [--source] <source> [--target] <target1> <target2>...<targetN>  [options] 

$> clonefile --sources <pattern> <target1> <target2>...<targetN>  [options] 

Programmatically

via CJS

const {cloneFile} = require("clonefile");

// "Source" and "target" can be strings or arrays of strings
cloneFile(source, target, {silent: true, force: true})

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or via ESM

import {cloneFile} from "clonefile";

cloneFile(source, target, {silent: true, force: true})

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Examples

Display file list in a directory without doing any copies

$> clonefile my-dir/ --list-only

💻 ↴

[
   "./docs/images/img_1.png",
   "./docs/images/img_2.png",
   "./docs/images/img_3.png",
   "./docs/images/img_4.png",
   ...
]

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Clone a file

$> clonefile license.txt license.md  

or

$> clonefile --source license.txt --target license.md  

NOTE: The source and the target arguments can be omitted

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Clone a file into directory

# Copy license.txt into my-dest-dir
$> clonefile license.txt my-dest-dir/  

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Clone a file to multiple locations

# Copy license.txt into my-file-target-1 (file), my-file-target-2 (file) and within (my-dest-dir-1/) (directory)
$> clonefile license.txt my-file-target-1 my-file-target-2 my-dest-dir-1/   

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Clone a directory in multiple directories

$> clonefile --force sourcedir/ my-dest-dir-1/ my-dest-dir-2/ my-dest-dir-3/  

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Clone multiple files from a glob pattern to multiple directories with the --sources options (mandatory)

$> clonefile --force --sources *.txt my-dest-dir-1/ my-dest-dir-2/ my-dest-dir-3/  

Result

C:/projects/clonefile/somefile1.txt => C:/projects/clonefile/my-dir-1/somefile1.txt C:/projects/clonefile/somefile1.txt => C:/projects/clonefile/my-dir-2/somefile1.txt C:/projects/clonefile/somefile1.txt => C:/projects/clonefile/my-dir-3/somefile1.txt

---

3 items cloned

C:/projects/clonefile/somefile2.txt => C:/projects/clonefile/my-dir-1/somefile2.txt C:/projects/clonefile/somefile2.txt => C:/projects/clonefile/my-dir-2/somefile2.txt C:/projects/clonefile/somefile2.txt => C:/projects/clonefile/my-dir-3/somefile2.txt

---

3 items cloned

C:/projects/clonefile/somefile3.txt => C:/projects/clonefile/my-dir-1/somefile3.txt C:/projects/clonefile/somefile3.txt => C:/projects/clonefile/my-dir-2/somefile3.txt C:/projects/clonefile/somefile3.txt => C:/projects/clonefile/my-dir-3/somefile3.txt

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3 items cloned

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Notes

NOTE: The --force option is required for cloning a directory

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To help clonefile knows whether you want to copy a file to a directory or another file, always add a trailing slash "/" to folders.

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Clone files using multiple glob patterns to multiple directories

$> clonefile --force --sources *.txt --sources ./sowehere/ --sources ../another-location/*.png my-dest-dir-1/ my-dest-dir-2/ my-dest-dir-3/  

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Clone multiple files and folders from multiple locations and files and folders from multiple glob patterns to multiple directories

$> clonefile --force --source my-file-1 --source path1/my-file-2 --source path1/my-dir/ --sources *.txt --sources /another-location/*.png my-dest-dir-1/ my-dest-dir-2/ my-dest-dir-3/  

"my-file-1" and "path1/my-file-2" are regular files and will be copied to "my-dest-dir-1/", "my-dest-dir-2/", "my-dest-dir-3/"

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"path1/my-dir/" is a directory that will be copied to "my-dest-dir-1/", "my-dest-dir-2/", "my-dest-dir-3/"

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"*.txt" will copy all .txt in the current directory to "my-dest-dir-1/", "my-dest-dir-2/", "my-dest-dir-3/"

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"/another-location/*.png" my-dest-dir-1/ will copy all .png in /another-location to "my-dest-dir-1/", "my-dest-dir-2/", "my-dest-dir-3/"

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Options

Options	default	Expect	Description
--silent	false	boolean	Whether to display messages
--sources	""	string	Glob Pattern to determine files to copy
--source	""	string	Regular file path for files or directories to copy
--target	""	string	Destination files or folders
--recursive	false	boolean	create target directories if nonexistent
--force	false	boolean	Allow cloning directories & Overwrite destination
--progress	false	boolean	Display a progress bar during copy
--clearProgress	false	boolean	Remove the progress bar when task complete
--list	false	boolean	Print out the file list to copy
--list-only	false	boolean	Only display the file list to copy in an array formatted for Js. No copy will be done
--dry	false	boolean	Print out all operations, but without making any copies
--no-limit	false	boolean	Ignore the limit set on copies (10000 by default).
--hide-overwrite-error	false	boolean	Don't display error messages on overwrite.

--progress

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Package

📁 package                
│
│─ 📝 index.cjs (2.1Kb)  
│─ 📝 index.mjs (2.3Kb)  
│
└───📁 src
│   │
│   │─ 📝 clonefile.cjs            ⇽ CJS version      - Node (25.1k unminified)
│   │─ 📝 clonefile.esm            ⇽ ESM version      - Node (25.7k unminified)

Changelog

current:

• Restore the --recursive option

3.8.0:

• Add the option --hide-overwrite-error

3.7.2:

• Allow copying with clonefile and clone functions

3.7.0:

• Follow symlinks

3.6.0:

• Generate code for ESM with to-esm
• Fix help command not working

3.5.0:

• Replace the --force option with --no-limit to allow unlimited copies
• Increase the default limit for copying at once to 10000 (Use --no-limit to remove limitation)
• Copy with no limit when cloning programmatically and add a --no-limit option (cli) to enforce unlimited copies
• Add --list, --list-only and --dry options

3.4.0:

• Add the option --clearProgress

3.3.0:

• Add a --progress option to display a progress bar while copying

3.2.6:

• Copy symlinks

3.2.5:

• Fix --force option not working with cloneGlobs

3.2.4:

• Review file limits processing (5000 instead of 200) (To increase or reduce that limit, create an environment variable called CLONE_FILE_MAX_PATTERN and pass the new limit)

3.2.3:

• Increase limit files to copy from 200 to 5000
• Fix js error in cloneGlobs

3.2.1:

• Use clone and cloneGlobs for programmatic copies

3.2.0:

• Import the clone function to copy from code

3.1.0:

• Add various fixes
• Deprecate the --recursive option with --force
• Allow selecting multiple sources with the --source option

2.1.1:

• Do not stop at the first error

1.1.3:

• Make --force option automatically be --recursive and --overwrite

1.1.0:

• Allow cloning a directory
• Replace the --verbose option with --silent
• Fix cloning when options misplaced

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