A simple parts stenza with: organize: '*': foo will lead to this error message: Trying to organize file '*' to 'foo', but 'foo' already exists Which isn't the case (foo doesn't exists in stage/ nor prime/). I guess triggering situation is that * is a directory content with multiple items and destination is what looks like a filename to snapcraft. My bet is that the first item copy happens, and when trying to copy the second file/directory, we thus already have a "foo" file or directory corresponding to the first item to copy. Then, the error makes sense :) However, this is confusing to the user. The fix is of course to tell snapcraft to copy to a directory by appending /: organize: '*': foo/ My feeling is that the final / shouldn't be needed though and we should, in case of having a blob regexp, treat the right parts of the expression as a directory if there is more than one item matched. ProblemType: Bug DistroRelease: Ubuntu 16.04 Package: snapcraft 2.26 ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 4.4.0-62.83-generic 4.4.40 Uname: Linux 4.4.0-62-generic x86_64 NonfreeKernelModules: zfs zunicode zcommon znvpair zavl ApportVersion: 2.20.1-0ubuntu2.5 Architecture: amd64 CurrentDesktop: Unity Date: Thu Feb 9 14:09:30 2017 InstallationDate: Installed on 2012-05-28 (1717 days ago) InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 12.04 LTS "Precise Pangolin" - Release amd64 (20120425) PackageArchitecture: all SourcePackage: snapcraft UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to xenial on 2014-10-31 (832 days ago)