Forum Discussion
Power Automate Sharepoint file Copy not keeping the created by
Ok, so I can't find anywhere that says this is possible or how to do it, but I just figured it out, at least it works for me going cross site. So the trick is to utilize the built in move to command via REST API. There is a hidden little property on it that acts like a move but retains the source since copy doesn't retain metadata but move to command will. So this seems to work, here is a Screen of my test flow. I'll also paste the Body text down below so you can copy and paste, but it's actually pretty simple once you figure out all this undocumented stuff like the Conflictname behavior which I just guessed at to find the right number to override the name. You can also change that to a 2 if you want to generate a new file for each update instead, or 0 to do nothing if one exists. Anyway hope this works for you, not sure how it'll work with files already open for editing but hopefully it still copies and doesn't error when locked for editing otherwise I don't think it'll be possible. You can get status of the job etc. to do retries if that's the case but that's outside my time to spend on this limitations :).
API: _api/site/CreateCopyJobsBody:
{
"exportObjectUris":[
"Link to Item from Get File Properties Step goes here"
],
"destinationUri":"https://Your_Tenant.sharepoint.com/sites/YourSite/YourLibrary_NoSlash_at_end",
"options":{
"IgnoreVersionHistory":true,
"IsMoveMode":true,
"MoveButKeepSource":true,
"NameConflictBehavior":1
}
}
Thank you for your response. With the workflow and the impersonation step, the copied file would keep the created by and the modified would change to the impersonation account.
Now with flow it is changing both the created by and the modified by to the account that created the flow loosing the meta data I need.
Is there anyway to change this?
Ok, so I can't find anywhere that says this is possible or how to do it, but I just figured it out, at least it works for me going cross site. So the trick is to utilize the built in move to command via REST API. There is a hidden little property on it that acts like a move but retains the source since copy doesn't retain metadata but move to command will. So this seems to work, here is a Screen of my test flow. I'll also paste the Body text down below so you can copy and paste, but it's actually pretty simple once you figure out all this undocumented stuff like the Conflictname behavior which I just guessed at to find the right number to override the name. You can also change that to a 2 if you want to generate a new file for each update instead, or 0 to do nothing if one exists. Anyway hope this works for you, not sure how it'll work with files already open for editing but hopefully it still copies and doesn't error when locked for editing otherwise I don't think it'll be possible. You can get status of the job etc. to do retries if that's the case but that's outside my time to spend on this limitations :).
API: _api/site/CreateCopyJobsBody:
{
"exportObjectUris":[
"Link to Item from Get File Properties Step goes here"
],
"destinationUri":"https://Your_Tenant.sharepoint.com/sites/YourSite/YourLibrary_NoSlash_at_end",
"options":{
"IgnoreVersionHistory":true,
"IsMoveMode":true,
"MoveButKeepSource":true,
"NameConflictBehavior":1
}
}- Ops, sorry, also the First trigger would obviously your "When created or modified" instead to automate it, I had for selected for testing purposes.
