How can I copy a file from my machine to another machine from command line?

Question

Something like

cp \\target_machine local_file.txt c:\dest_file.txt

Ash · Accepted Answer · 2010-10-08 05:13:07Z

up vote 1 down vote accepted

Assuming you have appropriate permissions, you can do it like this:

copy local_file.txt \\target_machine\c$\dest_file.txt

Use "c$" to reference C drive on the remote machine.

answered Oct 8 '10 at 5:13

Ash
5831513

Sathya · Answer 2 · 2010-10-08 12:21:42Z

up vote 0 down vote

It's like this:

copy c:\local_path\local_file.txt \\target_machine\destination_path\destination_file.txt

If you have \\target_machine\destination_path\ mapped to a network drive, say, Z: then the command becomes

copy c:\local_path\local_file.txt Z:\destination_file.txt

edited Oct 8 '10 at 12:21

answered Oct 8 '10 at 5:11

Sathya♦
32.5k1170183

	when I try the first option (without the c$ stuff) I get "The system cannot find the path specified" or "The network name cannot be found", depending on one or two backslashes before machine name. – Ash Oct 8 '10 at 5:15
	Hmm, there was an error in Markdownformatting which showed only single backslash instead of 2. If you're getting `The network name cannot be found` then it's a network problem, either you don't have permissions or the firewall is blocking your requests – Sathya♦ Oct 8 '10 at 12:23
	I tried both one and two backslashes, and got the different error messages depending on which I used. "Network name cannot be found" was with two backslashes. Interesting. That works with your network setup? It didn't work with either our server or other clients... – Ash Oct 8 '10 at 13:45
	@Ash single backslash indicates you are accessing the current drive, hence you got the `system cannot find path specified error`. Double backslash is used for accessing network shares with UNC naming scheme. Yes, this works on my network, I have couple of scripts where I make use of this ( scripts are to export data, compress them and move them to NAS). I suspect permissions problems. Are the machines you want to copy on different domains/workgroups ? – Sathya♦ Oct 8 '10 at 13:59

2 Answers