Recursive file search using PowerShell

Question

I am searching for a file in all the folders   Copyforbuild bat is available in many places  and I would like to search recursively    File    V  Myfolder      CopyForbuild bat    How can I do it in PowerShell

User · Answer

Filter using wildcards   Get-ChildItem -Filter CopyForBuild  -Include   bat   cmd -Exclude   old cmd   old bat -Recurse   Filtering using a regular expression   Get-ChildItem -Path  V  Myfolder  -Recurse   Where-Object      Name -match   ACopyForBuild    bat   cmd   Z

User · Answer

To add to  user3303020 answer and output the search results into a file  you can run   Get-ChildItem V  MyFolder -name -recurse   CopyForbuild bat  gt  path to results filename txt   It may be easier to search for the correct file that way

User · Answer

Here is the method that I finally came up with after struggling   Get-ChildItem -Recurse -Path path with wildc rds  -Include file     To make the output cleaner  only path   use    Get-ChildItem -Recurse -Path path with wildc rds  -Include file    fullname   To get only the first result  use    Get-ChildItem -Recurse -Path path with wildc rds  -Include file    fullname   Select -First 1   Now for the important stuff   To search only for files directories do not use -File or -Directory  see below why   Instead use this for files   Get-ChildItem -Recurse -Path   path   -Include name    where     PSIsContainer -eq  false    and remove the -eq  false for directories  Do not leave a trailing wildcard like bin      Why not use the built in switches  They are terrible and remove features randomly  For example  in order to use -Include with a file  you must end the path with a wildcard  However  this disables the -Recurse switch without telling you   Get-ChildItem -File -Recurse -Path   bin   -Include   lib   You d think that would give you all   libs in all subdirectories  but it only will search top level of bin   In order to search for directories  you can use -Directory  but then you must remove the trailing wildcard  For whatever reason  this will not deactivate -Recurse  It is for these reasons that I recommend not using the builtin flags   You can shorten this command considerably   Get-ChildItem -Recurse -Path   path   -Include name    where     PSIsContainer -eq  false    becomes  gci    path    -s -Include  name     where     PSIsContainer -eq  false     Get-ChildItem is aliased to gci -Path is default to position 0  so you can just make first argument path -Recurse is aliased to -s -Include does not have a shorthand Use single quotes for spaces in names paths  so that you can surround the whole command with double quotes and use it in Command Prompt  Doing it the other way around  surround with single quotes  causes errors

User · Answer

Get-ChildItem V  MyFolder -name -recurse   CopyForbuild bat   Will also work

User · Answer

I use this to find files and then have PowerShell display the entire path of the results   dir -Path C  FolderName -Filter FileName fileExtension -Recurse        FullName    You can always use the wildcard   in the FolderName and or FileName fileExtension  For example   dir -Path C  Folder  -Filter File  file  -Recurse        FullName    The above example will search any folder in the C   drive beginning with the word Folder  So if you have a folder named FolderFoo and FolderBar PowerShell will show results from both of those folders   The same goes for the file name and file extension  If you want to search for a file with a certain extension  but don t know the name of the file  you can use   dir -Path C  FolderName -Filter   fileExtension -Recurse        FullName    Or vice versa   dir -Path C  FolderName -Filter FileName   -Recurse        FullName

User · Answer

Try this   Get-ChildItem -Path V  Myfolder -Filter CopyForbuild bat -Recurse   Where-Object      Attributes -ne  Directory

User · Answer

Use the Get-ChildItem cmdlet with the -Recurse switch   Get-ChildItem -Path V  Myfolder -Filter CopyForbuild bat -Recurse -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue -Force

User · Answer

When searching folders where you might get an error based on security  e g  C  Users   use the following command   Get-ChildItem -Path V  Myfolder -Filter CopyForbuild bat -Recurse -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue -Force

[powershell] Recursive file search using PowerShell

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