Your problem is almost certainly Windows. You will need to work around some Microsoft dain bramage by changing to the source directory, opening the source file using a relative filename, changing to the target directory, opening the target file using a relative filename, and then copying the file contents. Note that you may have to change directories in steps (chdir('C:\sandboxes\source_backup\source_backup\source_develop') && chdir('.\source_folder\source_part\source_specific') && chdir('.\source_common') or die "chdir: $!"; is one possibility) if the directories are themselves deeply nested with long names, or use UNC paths for source and target, which are either exempt from path length limits or have higher limits — I do not know which.