I am using PowerShell to find, move, and rename a large amount of audit files. These files are in a shared folder with hundreds of gigabytes of extra junk. Manually clicking and dragging would take hours or even days as they are in many nested folders.
All files are currently named the same (audit.log, or audit1.log if there is a second log in the same folder). I need to find those files, copy them to a central location and rename them so they don't overwrite one another (not necessarily in that order).
I am not a programmer by any standard. This is what I have tried so far based on this website:
cd "H:\Flights\SCP\Log Analysis\1st Quarter"
Get-ChildItem -Filter "audit*.log" -Recurse `
| Rename-Item -NewName {$_.Name -replace 'audit', "$_.Fullname"} -WhatIf `
| Move-Item -Destination "H:\Flights\SCP\Log Analysis\Audit logs" -WhatIf
I use -WhatIf to make sure I do not make a mistake since I cannot overwrite the files. My original line of thought was to simply replace the word audit with the file path, but any reasonable method to rename the files in a way which will not overwrite will be helpful.
Theo and Mathias R. Jessen have provided all the crucial pointers in comments:
Rename-Item only accepts a mere name as a -NewName argument.
Move-Item can perform both moving and renaming in a single operation.
Delay-bind script blocks ({ ... }) can be passed to both Rename-Item's -NewName and Move-Item's -Destination parameters, which enable deriving the target name / path dynamically, for each input object ($_)
To put it all together:
Get-ChildItem -Filter audit*.log -Recurse |
Move-Item -Destination {
"H:\Flights\SCP\Log Analysis\Audit logs\$($_.FullName -replace '[:\\/]', '_')"
} -WhatIf
Note: The -WhatIf common parameter in the command above previews the operation. Remove -WhatIf once you're sure the operation will do what you want.
Note:
The target directory of the move operation must already exist (-Force does not create it for you, it would only allow you to replace an existing file).
$_.FullName -replace '[:\\/]', '_' transforms the full path of the original file into something that can be used as a file name, by replacing :, \ (and /) characters with _.
The caveat is that with long paths you may run into the 256-characters-per-name limit
An alternative is to use an abstract, unique identifier of fixed length, which you can generate with the New-Guid cmdlet, as Mathias suggests.
Related
I have multiple .txt files in folders/their sub-folders.
I want to append _old to their file names.
I tried:
Get-ChildItem -Recurse | Rename-Item -NewName {$_.name -replace '.txt','_old.txt' }
This results in:
Some files get updated correctly
Some files get updated incorrectly - they get _old twice - example: .._old_old.txt
There are few errors: Rename-Item : Source and destination path must be different.
To prevent already renamed files from accidentally reentering the file enumeration and therefore getting renamed multiple times, enclose your Get-ChildItem call in (), the grouping operator, which ensures that all output is collected first[1], before sending the results through the pipeline:
(Get-ChildItem -Recurse) |
Rename-Item -NewName { $_.name -replace '\.txt$', '_old.txt' }
Note that I've used \.txt$ as the regex[2], so as to ensure that only a literal . (\.) followed by string txt at the end ($) of the file name is matched, so as to prevent false positives (e.g., a file named Atxt.csv or even a directory named AtxtB would accidentally match your original regex).
Note: The need to collect all Get-ChildItem output first arises from how the PowerShell pipeline fundamentally works: objects are (by default) sent to the pipeline one by one, and processed by a receiving command as they're being received. This means that, without (...) around Get-ChildItem, Rename-Item starts renaming files before Get-ChildItem has finished enumerating files, which causes problems. See this answer for more information about how the PowerShell pipeline works.
Tip of the hat to Matthew for suggesting inclusion of this information.
However, I suggest optimizing your command as follows:
(Get-ChildItem -Recurse -File -Filter *.txt) |
Rename-Item -NewName { $_.BaseName + '_old' + $_.Extension }
-File limits the the output to files (doesn't also return directories).
-Filter is the fastest way to limit results to a given wildcard pattern.
$_.BaseName + '_old' + $_.Extension uses simple string concatenation via the sub-components of a file name.
An alternative is to stick with -replace:
$_.Name -replace '\.[^.]+$', '_old$&'
Note that if you wanted to run this repeatedly and needed to exclude files renamed in a previous run, add -Exclude *_old.txt to the Get-ChildItem call.
[1] Due to a change in how Get-ChildItem is implemented in PowerShell [Core] 6+ (it now internally sorts the results, which invariably requires collecting them all first), the (...) enclosure is no longer strictly necessary, but this could be considered an implementation detail, so for conceptual clarity it's better to continue to use (...).
[2] PowerShell's -replace operator operates on regexes (regular expressions); it doesn't perform literal substring searches the way that the [string] type's .Replace() method does.
The below command will return ALL files from the current folder and sub-folders within the current directory the command is executed from.
Get-ChildItem -Recurse
Because of this you are also re-turning all the files you have already updated to have the _old suffix.
What you need to do is use the -Include -Exclude paramters of the Get-Childitem Cmdlet in order to ignore files that already have the _old suffix, and meet your include criteria, for example.
Get-ChildItem -Recure -Include "*.txt" -Exclude "*_old"
Then pipe the results into your re-name item command
Get-ChildItem cmdlet explanation can be found here.
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/module/microsoft.powershell.management/get-childitem?view=powershell-7
I am working on powershell where I have multiple folders i need to change all folders names into Uppercase not the files only folder.
I have tried the below code
Get-ChildItem -Path "C:\Users\Xyz\Desktop\sample" -Recurse | % {
if ($_.Name -cne $_.Name.ToUpper()) { ren $_.FullName $_.Name.ToUpper() }
}
But with this code it was changing only file name but I want to change only dir
for example
foldername (lowerCase)
abc
cab
dab
like this (UPPERCASE)
ABC
CAB
DAB
Thanks in advance
These tricks may not be obvious. How's this? Hmm, that didn't actually work. You can't rename folders to the same thing in upper case in powershell.
# doesn't work!
get-childitem -recurse -directory -path "C:\Users\Xyz\Desktop\sample" |
Rename-Item -NewName { $_.name.toupper() } -whatif
Sometimes calling cmd from powershell just works better. Try this first as a "whatif" to see if it does what you want. And if I really understand the question. All this does is echo strings. This command is just "pretend".
get-childitem -recurse -directory -path "C:\Users\Xyz\Desktop\sample" |
foreach { write-host cmd /c ren $_.fullname $_.name.toupper() }
And if that looks good, this actually does the rename. But maybe make a backup in case something goes wrong. Be able to undo the action.
get-childitem -recurse -directory -path "C:\Users\Xyz\Desktop\sample" |
foreach { cmd /c ren $_.fullname $_.name.toupper() }
To limit Get-ChildItem's output to directories only, use the -Directory switch (PSv3+; in PSv2, pipe to Where-Object { $_.PSIsContainer }
Apart from that, your solution should work, but doesn't due to a conceptual flaw in .NET's System.IO.DirectoryInfo.MoveTo() method (and also System.IO.Directory.Move() method), which PowerShell's Rename-Item cmdlet builds on, as of .NET Core 3.0 preview6 / .NET 4.8:
The method doesn't recognize case variations of directory name as a different name, and fails with Source and destination path must be different.
Curiously, files are not affected, as you've experienced.[1]
Of course, while NTFS is case-insensitive, it is also case-preserving, so it should be possible to rename foo to FOO, for instance.
The problem has been reported in this GitHub issue.
Workaround (PSv4+):
Note: js2010's helpful answer offers another, workaround, based on calling cmd.exe for each input folder to use its ren command. While it is conceptually simpler, the caveat is that this approach of creating a child process for every folder processed is inefficient and slow. That said, for occasional renaming operations that probably won't matter.
$path = 'C:\Users\Xyz\Desktop\sample'
Get-ChildItem -LiteralPath $path -Recurse -Directory |
Where-Object { $_.Name -cne $_.Name.ToUpper() } -PipelineVariable dir |
Rename-Item -PassThru -NewName { [IO.Path]::GetRandomFileName() } |
Rename-Item -NewName { $dir.Name.ToUpper() }
The workaround temporarily renames matching folders to a transient, randomly generated name ([IO.Path]::GetRandomFileName()) and then applies the all-uppercase version of the original name.
The input folder's original state and name are captured via variable $dir, which is "stashed" away for later use via the common -PipelineVariable parameter.
[1] Caveat: When you use Get-ChildItem or Get-Item to report a specific directory or file by its literal name, whatever case variation you specify is reported back, even though the true case variation as stored in the filesystem may differ (File Explorer, by contrast, always shows you the true case). To see the true case, useGet-ChildItem <parentDir> -Filter <name>or, as a quick workaround that may show additional items, however, append * to the name/path. In both cases, the name is treated as a wildcard pattern, and the result of the matching process reflects the true case.
How to double quotes folder names ? Some folders has spaces ...
write-host cmd /c ren $.fullname $.name.toupper()
I have a whole bunch of users that are simply dragging emails from outlook on to a network share. That network SMB share gets sync'd with OneDrive and one drive hates to have leading spaces in a filename. Also some of the file names are so large that windows refuses to let me do anything with it (over 255 characters). I've found that simply renaming the files and taking out all the spaces does the trick. I have thousands of files in many sub directories and they keep adding more every day. I'd like a simple script that I can run everyday on the file server that scans all the *.msg files in a directory and all the sub directories and simply removes all the spaces. Can someone help me with a powershell script that will accomplish this?
The following variation of your own answer should perform significantly better:
Get-ChildItem -Recurse -Filter *.msg |
Rename-Item -NewName { $_.Name.Replace(' ', '') }
Note: You could add -File to Get-ChildItem in order to limit matches to files for extra robustness, but it actually slows down the command a bit (not much).
-Filter filters at the source and is therefore much faster than using -Path (implied in your command) or -Include, which require PowerShell itself to examine all items.
Using a delay-bind script block as the -NewName argument performs better than a call to the ForEach-Object cmdlet in whose script block Rename-Item is called once every iteration.
Note:
There's a risk of name collisions.
Attempts to rename a file to itself - if the name contains no spaces - are quietly ignored.
This script works great:
get-childitem -recurse *.msg | foreach { rename-item $_ $_.Name.Replace(" ", "") }
I've run into the issue I know has been addressed several times here previously but I'm not overly familiar with PS scripts or regular expressions and I'm struggling to implement a fix here.
Basically, I'd be very happy if this line of my script would work:
Get-childItem *.* -recurse -force | % {rename-item $_.name ($_.name -replace '(\d{2}) \[(\d{1})x(\d{2})\]','$1 s0$2e$3')}
And example file name would be "24 [1x01].avi" and should instead be named "24 s01e01.avi" - I'm trying to tidy up my media collection :)
I know the reason it doesn't is the square brackets in the file names. I think i have to move the files to a temp location, changing the name while doing so and then move back. My difficulty is that I haven't been able to find an example of this using the regular expression and I haven't been able to get this to work.
Also, is there a better workaround than this available yet? The bug on Microsoft Connect is closed as fixed?
Thanks!
I think your regular expressions might make more sense (to you), especially as a beginner, if you used "named groups" (a regular expression concept). I've modified your regular expression slightly to take this into account. You should really get familiar with regular expression terminology though, to ensure that you can update your regex to work in all scenarios.
"24 [1x01].avi" -replace '(?<ShowName>.*) \[(?<Season>\d{1})x(?<Episode>\d{2})\]','${ShowName} s0${Season}e${Episode}';
Result:
24 s01e01.avi
Can you give an example of a file name that doesn't work?
EDIT: Attaching example script. Let me know if this works for you.
# 1. Define a test folder path
$RootPath = "$env:SystemDrive\test";
# 2. Create the folder
mkdir -Path $RootPath;
# 3. Create a test file
Set-Content -Path "$RootPath\24 [1x01].txt" -Value '';
# 4. Get a list of files in the directory
$FileList = Get-ChildItem -Path $RootPath;
foreach ($File in $FileList) {
# 5. Fix up the name of each file
$NewName = $File.Name -replace '(?<ShowName>.*) \[(?<Season>\d{1})x(?<Episode>\d{2})\]','${ShowName} s0${Season}e${Episode}';
# 6. Rename the file
Move-Item -Path $File.FullName -Destination ((Split-Path -Path $File.FullName -Parent) + $NewName);
}
powershell Rename-Item fail to rename
If you are running PS 3+ add -LiteralPath switch to your rename:
One of the easiest ways to handle the Special Characters (such as square/block brackets[]) in the file-names, is to simply use the -LiteralPath parameter.
Error: When attempting to rename files or folders that contain square/block brackets [], the standard error message that PowerShell returns is "file not found", which is not accurate.
Reason: Windows still uses old fashioned 8.3 format short-file-names (max 8 chars with limited allowed chars) unfortunately PowerShell's -Path parameter (even in version 5.1) uses these internal names.
Solution: Use the -LiteralPath argument, available for most cmdlets (including Get-ChildItem or Rename-Item etc.)
Examples: Depicting handling of files or folders that contain square/block brackets []:
Get-ChildItem -LiteralPath "test[1].txt";
Test-Path -LiteralPath "C:\dir\test[1].txt";
Rename-Item -LiteralPath "test[1].txt" "test[2].txt";
Note: In PowerShell version below 3.0, to rename files/directories containing special characters, use Move-Item with -LiteralPath, instead of Rename-Item cmdlet because Rename-Item didn't have -LiteralPath in PS version 2.0 (or below).
Thanks to pointers from #Trevor Sullivan I was able to get the desired results by:
Updating to the most recent version of PowerShell (download link available in the comments)
Edited the script to the following:
Get-childItem *.* -recurse -force | Move-Item -Destination {$_ -replace '(\d{2}) \[(\d{1})x(\d{2})\]','$1 s0$2e$3'}
I'm trying to do a simple copy with rename from the Powershell V2.0 command line as follows:
Copy-Item my_file.* my_file_old.*
I expect this to function the same as the DOS equivalent
copy my_file.* my_file_old.*
However, it's failing with the complaint "illegal characters in path". If I replace the wildcard * with a specific file number, e.g. 1, it works fine.
I guess I'm basically trying to replicate that DOS version but in Powershell, where I'd like to use the -Exclude parameter once I get this basic version sorted out.
What am I doing wrong? Some posts on another forum I found suggested wildcards were not supported in V2.0, but I can't believe that. That's like Microsoft saying "We just released a new version of Windows, but forgot to support keyboards and mice".
If you look at the help on Copy-Item it will tell you which parameters support wildcards and which do not. -Destination does not support wildcards:
-Destination
Specifies the path to the new location. To rename a copied item, include the new name in the value.
Required? false
Position? 2
Default value
Accept pipeline input? true (ByPropertyName)
Accept wildcard characters? false
You can do what you want it with a tiny bit of script:
Get-ChildItem my_file.* | Copy-Item -Dest {$_.basename + "_old" + $_.extension} -WhatIf
Remove the -WhatIf parameter when you are happy it will copy the files correctly.
Wildcards are definitely supported, assuming you use them properly. A wildcard in your destination is strange and in most situations not what you want. And copying a file (or group of files) onto itself (which is what you're doing here - when you don't specify parameter names for Copy-Item the first is the source and the second is the destination) is almost certainly not what you want.
copy-item myFile.* -destination DESTPATH
or
get-childitem -filter myFile.* | Copy-Item -destination DESTPATH
Here is an example of renaming a bunch of .jpg files to a sequential list of numbers [001.jpg, 002.jpg, etc]
get-childitem *.jpg | foreach-object -begin {$count=1} -process {rename-item -path $_.FullName -newname ('{0:000}.jpg' -f $count++)}
You could adapt this to meet your needs by adjusting the *.jpg and '{0:000}.jpg' parts