[powershell] Output data with no column headings using PowerShell

I want to be able to output data from PowerShell without any column headings. I know I can hide the column heading using Format-Table -HideTableHeaders, but that leaves a blank line at the top.

Here is my example:

get-qadgroupmember 'Domain Admins' | Select Name | ft -hide | out-file Admins.txt

How do I eliminate the column heading and the blank line?

I could add another line and do this:

Get-Content Admins.txt | Where {$_ -ne ""} | out-file Admins1.txt

But can I do this on one line?

This question is related to powershell

The answer is


In your case, when you just select a single property, the easiest way is probably to bypass any formatting altogether:

get-qadgroupmember 'Domain Admins' | foreach { $_.Name }

This will get you a simple string[] without column headings or empty lines. The Format-* cmdlets are mainly for human consumption and thus their output is not designed to be easily machine-readable or -parseable.

For multiple properties I'd probably go with the -f format operator. Something along the lines of

alias | %{ "{0,-10}{1,-10}{2,-60}" -f $_.COmmandType,$_.Name,$_.Definition }

which isn't pretty but gives you easy and complete control over the output formatting. And no empty lines :-)


The -expandproperty does not work with more than 1 object. You can use this one :

Select-Object Name | ForEach-Object {$_.Name}

If there is more than one value then :

Select-Object Name, Country | ForEach-Object {$_.Name + " " + $Country}

A better answer is to leave your script as it was. When doing the Select name, follow it by -ExpandProperty Name like so:

Get-ADGroupMember 'Domain Admins' | Select Name -ExpandProperty Name | out-file Admins.txt

If you use "format-table" you can use -hidetableheaders


First we grab the command output, then wrap it and select one of its properties. There is only one and its "Name" which is what we want. So we select the groups property with ".name" then output it.

to text file

 (Get-ADGroupMember 'Domain Admins' |Select name).name | out-file Admins1.txt

to csv

(Get-ADGroupMember 'Domain Admins' |Select name).name | export-csv -notypeinformation "Admins1.csv"

Joey mentioned that Format-* is for human consumption. If you're writing to a file for machine consumption, maybe you want to use Export-*? Some good ones are

  • Export-Csv - Comma separated value. Great for when you know what the columns are going to be
  • Export-Clixml - You can export whole objects and collections. This is great for serialization.

If you want to read back in, you can use Import-Csv and Import-Clixml. I find that I like this better than inventing my own data formats (also it's pretty easy to whip up an Import-Ini if that's your preference).


add the parameter -expandproperty after the select-object, it will return only data without header.