When you copy files from one location or folder to another in Windows, files are copied sequentially, i.e., one by one. This takes alot of time if you have to copy thousands of files. But there is a way in Windows 7, which enables you to copy multiple files at the same time in multiple-threads. Here is how you can copy files in multiple threads :
Suppose you want to copy all the files from E:pics to C:pics, then do this :
- Open the Run dialog by pressing the key combination Windows Key + R. Type cmd in the Run dialog and press Enter.
- In the command prompt window that opens, type the following and press Enter :
robocopy e:pics c:pics /e /mt
Robocopy will start copying files very fast. By default only 8 threads are used but you can change the number of threads by speciifying like /mt:n where n is the number of the threads. For example, if you want 80 number of threads then use /mt:80. Using 1 thread is same as using no multiple-threads at all. It is no use specifying more number of threads than the number of files you are copying.
The /e switch tells the Robocopy to copy all the sub-folders from source to destination, even the empty ones. If you want to copy all the sub-folders from source to destination but skip the empty folders, then specify the /s switch instead.