Move all files within subfolders to parent folder

Solution 1:

Okay, I finally figured it out by adapting code from yet another question. Thanks to @AFH for clarifying the parts I was unsure about in the comments to this answer, and for his general help with it - it's much appreciated.

To Extract All Files from Subfolders to their Parent Folder

for /r "PARENTFOLDER" %d in (*.*) do move "%d" "PARENTFOLDER"

Remember to replace all instances of PARENTFOLDER with the path to the folder that you want to extract the files to.

To Extract All Files from Subfolders and Delete Empty Subfolders

It's unlikely you'll need to keep the empty subfolders left over after extracting the files from them - I certainly didn't - so the below command automates the deletion of them, too.

for /r "PARENTFOLDER" %d in (*.*) do move "%d" "PARENTFOLDER" && cd "PARENTFOLDER" && for /f "delims=" %d in ('dir /s /b /ad ^| sort /r') do rd "%d"

Once again, replace all instances of PARENTFOLDER with the path to the folder that you want to extract the files to.

By this point, however, it's no longer a one-liner, and starts to get a bit convoluted when pasted into the command line, so it's easier to just put the whole thing in a batch file. Using variables for the path to the parent folder allows you to replace just the one instance of PARENTFOLDER at the beginning of the file, and it's also the safer option, preventing against any accidental deletion of empty folders that you might want to keep.

The Batch File

Paste into a text file, replace PARENTFOLDER with the path to the folder you want it to work with, and save it with the .bat extension. Run in any directory.

@ECHO OFF
SETLOCAL
SET parent="PARENTFOLDER"
CD /d %parent% 
FOR /r %parent% %%d IN (*.*) DO MOVE "%%d" %parent% 
FOR /f "delims=" %%d IN ('DIR /a:d /s /b ^| SORT /r') DO RD "%%d"
ECHO Done. Press any key to terminate script.
PAUSE >NUL