Robocopy Download and Basic Usage (/MIR Backup)

Robocopy (Robust File Copy) is one of the best command-line tools for backing up and mirroring folders on Windows.

Where to get it: on Windows Vista, 7, 8, 10, 11 and Windows Server 2008 and later it’s built in — just open a command prompt and type robocopy. Nothing to download.

For old Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 it came with the Windows Server 2003 Resource Kit: download robocopy.exe for XP/2003.

Basic usage

Robocopy has lots of options, but this single line already keeps a mirror copy of a folder:

robocopy c:\Data1 d:\Data2 /MIR

Careful with /MIR: it makes the destination an exact mirror — files deleted in the source are also deleted in the destination. Double-check the paths.

Useful options

robocopy C:\Data D:\Backup\Data /MIR /R:2 /W:5 /MT:8 /LOG:C:\backup.log

• /R:2 /W:5 — retry a locked file twice, waiting 5 seconds (the default is a million retries!);
• /MT:8 — copy in 8 threads (faster for many small files);
• /LOG:file — write a log instead of flooding the screen;
• /XD folder, /XF *.tmp — exclude folders or files;
• /L — dry run: only show what would be copied.

Put the command in a .cmd file and run it from Task Scheduler — and you have automatic backups.