Check if folder exists, then create folder with VBA MkDir

This tutorial will show you how to check if a folder exists and create the folder with VBA MkDir if it doesn’t exist. It’s important that you check to see if the folder exists before calling the VBA MkDir statement. If you attempt to use it to create a folder that already exists, you’ll be greeted with a “Run-time error 75: Path/File access error.”

The macros in this tutorial will show you how to prevent this error by checking if the folder exists first.

MkDir is short for “Make Directory” and it does exactly that. If you’re familiar with Unix or Linux, or even with the Windows command prompt, you may already know about similar MkDir functions. The VBA MkDir statement behaves in much the same way.

Use VBA MkDir to Create a Folder

Sub CreateFolder(sFolder As String)
'Check if a folder exists, and if it doesn't, create folder with VBA MkDir
    If Len(Dir(sFolder, vbDirectory)) = 0 Then
        MkDir sFolder
    End If
End Sub

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Calling CreateFolder

All you have to do is pass this subroutine a string storing the directory you want to create, just like in this demo:

Sub Demo()
CreateFolder ("C:\MySampleFolder")
End Sub

The CreateFolder macro uses the Dir function with the vbDirectory argument to check to see if the folder already exists. If you’re a long-time follower of the VBA Tutorials Blog, you may be familiar with the VBA Dir function - I’ve written about it before to show you how to check if a file exists.

If Dir can’t find the directory, it creates it from scratch using MkDir. If the folder already exists, the macro does nothing. No more run-time error!

I like creating subfolders in the directory where my workbook is saved so I can store text files or PDFs I automatically create based on my data. What kind of uses do you have for creating folders using VBA? Let me know in the comments section!

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