I find the following generalization of copyFile useful. Perhaps it could be added to System.Directory. {- |@'copyContents' old new@ copies the contents of /old/ to /new/, creating /new/ if it does not already exist. However the parent directory of /new/ must already exist. If /old/ is a plain file, 'copyContents' is equivalent to 'copyFile'. If /old/ is a directory, its contents are recursively copied into /new/, which, if it already exists, must be a directory. -} copyContents :: FilePath -> FilePath -> IO () copyContents fromFPath toFPath = do isFile <- doesFileExist fromFPath if isFile then copyFile fromFPath toFPath else do contents <- getDirectoryContents fromFPath createDirectoryIfMissing False toFPath sequence_ [copyContents (fromFPath `joinFileName` f) (toFPath `joinFileName` f) | f <- contents, f /= "." && f /= ".."]