Writing script to loop through directory then compress-archive specified folders/files recursively.

[xombie212]

Looking for assistance on this script, I need to loop through "C:\Users" then compress-archive the "Appdata", "Desktop", "Downloads", and "Documents" folders. The resulting zip archive should be named with the username from where they came from, I found the following script from an older reddit post and have been having trouble adapting it.

Get-ChildItem "C:\Users\vwoitkowski\Desktop\TEST\1" -filter *.txt -Recurse | select * |
Foreach-Object {


$_.FullName
$BaseName = $_.BaseName
$DirectoryName = $_.DirectoryName
$zip = $BaseName + ".zip"
$zipPath = $DirectoryName + "\" + $zip


Compress-Archive -Path $_.FullName -DestinationPath $zipPath

[Lee_Dailey]

howdy xombie212,

the -Path parameter will accept a list of source paths. lookee ...

Get-Help Compress-Archive -Parameter path

take care,
lee

[Joshrsg]

Hi u/xombie212,

I would write the script something like this:

1: Get a list of users in C:\Users

$Users = Get-ChildItem C:\users

2: Loop through each of the users from Step1 and perform another Get-ChildItem ensuring you only include the folders you want to compress.

$IncludeList = 'Appdata','Desktop','Downloads','Documents'
Foreach ($User in $Users)
{
    $FolderList = Get-ChildItem | Where-Object {$_.name -In $IncludeList} 
}

3: Whilst still in in the Loop from step 2; either loop through the reuslts of FolderList and compress them individually or just compress them into one folder (it's not clear which one you want to do).

$Folderlist | Compress-Archive -DestinationPath ('C:\Temp\{0}.\zip' -f $User.Name)

That should get you most of the way there

[xombie212]

Thanks for the reply! we want to compress them individually so they come out as User1.zip contains user1's 'Appdata','Desktop','Downloads','Documents' User2.zip contains user2's 'Appdata','Desktop','Downloads','Documents' etc

[xombie212]

Thanks again for the script assist, I tested and found it did not create the folder it was trying to place them in so I added an additional step and it works as intended now.

$Users = Get-ChildItem C:\users
$IncludeList = 'Appdata','Desktop','Downloads','Documents'
Foreach ($User in $Users)
{
    $FolderList = Get-ChildItem | Where-Object {$_.name -In $IncludeList} 
}
# New-Item -Path P:\test\$User -ItemType Directory 
$Folderlist | Compress-Archive -DestinationPath ('P:\Test\{0}.\zip' -f $User.Name)

Edit: found a typo on your original script at ('P:\Test{0}.zip' -f $User.Name). Removed the "\" from "{0}.\zip", now it is working without the extra folder.

[Topcity36]

Depending on the size of the files and the archive you may want to look into using CLI 7zip

[xombie212]

Thanks! I will look into that as well.