Need batch program that moves files without copying then deleting them

Question

Every month I have a very large number of files (in many subfolders) in a particular folder. I need to move them all into a different folder. In an attempt to automate the process of moving them I used robocopy in a batch file. It works fine, but takes HOURS to run. (It is many many GB).

Now, if I do it manually in Windows Explorer, by opening said folder, selecting all, and right-dragging to destination folder, and choosing "Move Here", it moves INSTANTLY. (Windows XP must be pruning and grafting the directory entries, without ever making a second copy of the files. ... and yes, source and destination are on same partition.)

So, QUESTION IS: Does anyone know of a program I can run from a batch file to move files in this instantaneous way? (need to move entire sub-folder tree)

Answer 1

With a point in the right direction from @psmears, and a lot of googling, I found the (or a) solution:

@echo off

setlocal ENABLEDELAYEDEXPANSION


REM  ** Change to source dir

L:
cd "L:\Backups\Source"



REM  ** Move files recursively

for /R %%G in (.) do (

set mydir=%%G
set mynewdir=!mydir:~18!

md "L:\DEST\!mynewdir!"
cd "L:\DEST\!mynewdir!"
move "%%G\*.*" .

)



REM  ** Remove now-empty sub-dir structure inside source

L:
cd "L:\Backups\Source"

for /f "usebackq delims=" %%d in (`"dir /ad/b/s | sort /R"`) do rd "%%d"

Answer 2

You can use MOVE for this:

C:\>MOVE /?
Moves files and renames files and directories.

To move one or more files:
MOVE [/Y | /-Y] [drive:][path]filename1[,...] destination

To rename a directory:
MOVE [/Y | /-Y] [drive:][path]dirname1 dirname2

      [drive:][path]filename1 Specifies the location and name of the file
                          or files you want to move.
  destination             Specifies the new location of the file. Destination
                          can consist of a drive letter and colon, a
                          directory name, or a combination. If you are moving
                          only one file, you can also include a filename if
                          you want to rename the file when you move it.
  [drive:][path]dirname1  Specifies the directory you want to rename.
  dirname2                Specifies the new name of the directory.

  /Y                      Suppresses prompting to confirm you want to
                          overwrite an existing destination file.
  /-Y                     Causes prompting to confirm you want to overwrite
                          an existing destination file.

The switch /Y may be present in the COPYCMD environment variable.
This may be overridden with /-Y on the command line.  Default is
to prompt on overwrites unless MOVE command is being executed from
within a batch script.

For example:

C:\Users\test>mkdir to
C:\Users\test>move from\*.txt to
C:\Users\test\from\1.txt
C:\Users\test\from\2.txt
        2 file(s) moved.