Emacs Dired: copying to the current folder

Solution 1:

M-x copy-file RET will prompt for the source file, then default to the current directory. You could bind that to a key.

Or, if that's not good enough, let me know and I'll write the command and post it.

Eh, I had some time, so here's the command:

(defun dired-copy-file-here (file)
  (interactive "fCopy file: ")
  (copy-file file default-directory))
(eval-after-load "dired"
  '(define-key dired-mode-map "\M-c" 'dired-copy-file-here))

Solution 2:

As Aurélien mentions, the only advantage you gain from being in a specific Dired buffer seems to be . means "here", so going for a shell cp is almost all you can do.

The other advantage that comes to my mind is, if you have another visible dired buffer (C-x2..), when you move/copy/link from the buffer you're in (from which you select all your files, therefore), emacs gives you some default targets as destinations, which are accessible with the <down> arrow when you're prompted in the minibuffer.

Say you have 2 dired buffers open, ~/here/ and ~/elsewhere/someplace/, then selecting a few files in ~/here/, pressing C in that buffer, then ↓ should give you the default option to copy stuff to ~/elsewhere/someplace/. Same for single files, you get the default directory, and the default directory+filename (e.g. ~/here/some long annoying filename you'd like to edit.any → ~/elsewhere/someplace/some long annoying filename you'd like to edit.any).

Just press ↓ again for more defaults.