Visual Studio: How to "Copy to Output Directory" without copying the folder structure?

instead of <Content> use <ContentWithTargetPath> and specify target path, like this:

<ItemGroup>
  <ContentWithTargetPath Include="lib\some_file.dat">
    <CopyToOutputDirectory>PreserveNewest</CopyToOutputDirectory>
    <TargetPath>some_file.dat</TargetPath>
  </ContentWithTargetPath>
</ItemGroup>

Note that this entry may not be visible from Visual Studio (2012, 2015, 2017), but once manually added to the csproj, it will appear in Visual Studio. The target path will not be editable through the UI though.

Keep them in $(ProjectDir)\Lib, but add those files "As a link" to the root of your .csproj. Now they will get copied to bin\Debug (or whatever other output folder) without being in lib.

EDIT: This answer was written way back when ContentWithTargetPath was not available in the versions of VS/MSBuild I was using. Leaving this answer here for people who might have to use an older version of VS. Please stop commenting on this, we all know there are better ways now.

If your main intent is to include DLLs without cluttering up the project root directory, another solution is to move the DLLs to a separate Shared Project and add this as a reference in the original project.

(Note that this post doesn't directly answer this question as it doesn't preserve the folder and project structure, but I found this approach useful because I was able to restructure my project in my case and because I wanted to avoid some of the downsides of the other approaches here.)

Steps

• Right-click your Solution -> Add -> New Project -> Shared Project
• Add the DLLs to this project (in the root directory of this project, not in a "lib" sub-folder)
• (Check DLL file properties are set correctly, e.g. Build Action: Content and Copy to Output Directory: Copy Always)
• Right-click the original project's References -> Add Reference -> Shared Projects
• Select the shared project you created earlier

The setup looks like this: