I am new to PowerShell and having difficulties trying to locate certain types of files (.doc, .docx, .xls, .xlsx), output the filenames and sizes (in groups by file extension) to a text file, and also include the total number files and total files size for each file extension.
The code that I have so far is:
$Report_File_Destination = "C:\Users\StayPositibve\Desktop\testing20.txt"
$path = ".\*"
Get-ChildItem $path -Include *.doc, *.docx, *.xls, *.xlsx -Recurse | Group-Object Extension -NoElement | Out-File $Report_File_Destination -Append
Every time I run this code, I receive a Get-ChildItem Access is Denied (I am running PowerShell as Administrator). What am I doing wrong? Thanks for your help!
This is due to the fact that it exists some paths that your are not allowed to browse. You can try to use -ErrorAction Ignore -Force options of Get-ChildItem to ignore these errors or force access to files that cannot otherwise be accessed by the user, such as hidden or system files. in old version of PowerShell you can test -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue.
Get-ChildItem $path -Include *.doc, *.docx, *.xls, *.xlsx -Recurse -ErrorAction Ignore -Force
Related
so trying to find a way to combine a couple of things the Stack Overflow crowd has helped me do in the past. So I know how to find folders with a specific name and move them where I want them to go:
$source_regex = [regex]::escape($sourceDir)
(gci $sourceDir -recurse | where {-not ($_.psiscontainer)} | select -expand fullname) -match "\\$search\\" |
foreach {
$file_dest = ($_ | split-path -parent) -replace $source_regex,$targetDir
if (-not (test-path $file_dest)){mkdir $file_dest}
move-item $_ -Destination $file_dest -force -verbose
}
And I also know how to find and delete files of a specific file extension within a preset directory:
Get-ChildItem $source -Include $searchfile -Recurse -Force | foreach{ "Removing file $($_.FullName)"; Remove-Item -force -recurse $_}
What I'm trying to do now is combine the two. Basically, I'm looking for a way to tell Powershell:
"Look for all folders named 'Draft Materials.' When you find a folder with that name, get its full path ($source), then run a command to delete files of a given file extension ($searchfile) from that folder."
What I'm trying to do is create a script I can use to clean up an archive drive when and if space starts to get tight. The idea is that as I develop things, a lot of times I go through a ton of incremental non-final drafts (hence folder name "Draft Materials"), and I want to get rid of the exported products (the PDFs, the BMPs, the AVIs, the MOVs, atc.) and just leave the master files that created them (the INDDs, the PRPROJs, the AEPs, etc.) so I can reconstruct them down the line if I ever need to. I can tell the script what drive and folder to search (and I'd assign that to a variable since the backup location may change and I'd like to just change it once), but I need help with the rest.
I'm stuck because I'm not quite sure how to combine the two pieces of code that I have to get Powershell to do this.
If what you want is to
"Look for all folders named 'Draft Materials.' When you find a folder with that name, get its full path ($source), then run a command to delete files of a given file extension ($searchfile) from that folder."
then you could do something like:
$rootPath = 'X:\Path\To\Start\Searching\From' # the starting point for the search
$searchFolder = 'Draft Materials' # the folder name to search for
$deleteThese = '*.PDF', '*.BMP', '*.AVI', '*.MOV' # an array of file patterns to delete
# get a list of all folders called 'Draft Materials'
Get-ChildItem -Path $rootPath -Directory -Filter $searchFolder -Recurse | ForEach-Object {
# inside each of these folders, get the files you want to delete and remove them
Get-ChildItem -Path $_.FullName -File -Recurse -Include $deleteThese |
Remove-Item -WhatIf
}
Or use Get-ChildItem only once, having it search for files. Then test if their fullnames contain the folder called 'Draft Materials'
$rootPath = 'X:\Path\To\Start\Searching\From'
$searchFolder = 'Draft Materials'
$deleteThese = '*.PDF', '*.BMP', '*.AVI', '*.MOV'
# get a list of all files with extensions from the $deleteThese array
Get-ChildItem -Path $rootPath -File -Recurse -Include $deleteThese |
# if in their full path names the folder 'Draft Materials' is present, delete them
Where-Object { $_.FullName -match "\\$searchFolder\\" } |
Remove-Item -WhatIf
In both cases I have added safety switch -WhatIf so when you run this, nothing gets deleted and in the console is written what would happen.
If that info shows the correct files are being removed, take off (or comment out) -Whatif and run the code again.
i am quite new to powershell and i am trying to make a script that copy files to certain folders that are declared in a CSV file. But till now i am getting errors from everywhere and can't find nothing to resolve this issue.
I have this folders and .txt files created in the same folder as the script.
Till now i could only do this:
$files = Import-Csv .\files.csv
$files
foreach ($file in $files) {
$name = $file.name
$final = $file.destination
Copy-Item $name -Destination $final
}
This is my CSV
name;destination
file1.txt;folderX
file2.txt;folderY
file3.txt;folderZ
As the comments indicate, if you are not using default system delimiters, you should make sure to specify them.
I also recommend typically to use quotes for your csv to ensure no problems with accidentally including an entry that includes the delimiter in the name.
#"
"taco1.txt";"C:\temp\taco2;.txt"
"# | ConvertFrom-CSV -Delimiter ';' -Header #('file','destination')
will output
file destination
---- -----------
taco1.txt C:\temp\taco2;.txt
The quotes make sure the values are correctly interpreted. And yes... you can name a file foobar;test..txt. Never underestimate what users might do. 😁
If you take the command Get-ChildItem | Select-Object BaseName,Directory | ConvertTo-CSV -NoTypeInformation and review the output, you should see it quoted like this.
Sourcing Your File List
One last tip. Most of the time I've come across a CSV for file input lists a CSV hasn't been needed. Consider looking at grabbing the files you in your script itself.
For example, if you have a folder and need to filter the list down, you can do this on the fly very easily in PowerShell by using Get-ChildItem.
For example:
$Directory = 'C:\temp'
$Destination = $ENV:TEMP
Get-ChildItem -Path $Directory -Filter *.txt -Recurse | Copy-Item -Destination $Destination
If you need to have more granular matching control, consider using the Where-Object cmdlet and doing something like this:
Get-ChildItem -Path $Directory -Filter *.txt -Recurse | Where-Object Name -match '(taco)|(burrito)' | Copy-Item -Destination $Destination
Often you'll find that you can easily use this type of filtering to keep CSV and input files out of the solution.
example
Using techniques like this, you might be able to get files from 2 directories, filter the match, and copy all in a short statement like this:
Get-ChildItem -Path 'C:\temp' -Filter '*.xlsx' -Recurse | Where-Object Name -match 'taco' | Copy-Item -Destination $ENV:TEMP -Verbose
Hope that gives you some other ideas! Welcome to Stack Overflow. 👋
I am using the below code:
Get-ChildItem -Path N:\USERS -Filter DANTOM.DTM -Recurse -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue -Force
I need it to either find the file "DANTOM.DTM" or the extension ".DTM". I need to exclude the folder N:\USERS\EDI because it is a 1.7TB folder that would never have this file in it. So in doing so would really speed up the process.
I would like the end result to either spit into a .txt file saying which folders inside of N:\USERS has the file or just have it display as a list in powershell.
Thank you,
Assuming that the files of interest do not reside directly in N:\USERS (only in subdirs.), try the following (PSv3+ syntax); send to a file by appending > dirs.txt, for instance.
Get-ChildItem N:\USERS -Directory | ? Name -ne 'EDI' |
Get-ChildItem -Recurse -Filter *.DTM |
ForEach-Object { $_.DirectoryName }
Note: While it is tempting to try a simpler approach with -Exclude EDI, it unfortunately doesn't seem to be effective in excluding the entire subtree of the EDI subfolder.
I have a .txt with the names of over 1000 files I want to delete. My .txt file does not have file paths. The files I want to delete are spread throughout multiple folders but they are all in the same drive. Is there any way to use powershell or command prompt to search for all files within my drive with the same name as what is listed in my .txt file and delete them?
Assuming you're PowerShell prompt is currently set at the root location from which you want to start your search and the file is in the same directory:
gc .\MyListOfFilesIWantToDelete.txt | %{gci $_ -Recurse | Remove-Item -WhatIf}
Note, you'll have to remove the -whatif
Or, let's say your file is somewhere else where you have PowerShell opened (eg: ~/Documents), and you want to scan your D: drive. This should work:
gc .\MyListOfFilesIWantToDelete.txt | %{gci D:\ -Filter $_ -Recurse -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue | Remove-Item -WhatIf}
Note I put SilentlyContinue. This is because you'll see a lot of red if you don't have access to folders in your search path.
Alternatively, you can load up a variable with your list of files..
$thesefiles = gc .\mylistoffilesiwanttodelete.txt
.. and use the Remove-Item cmdlet directly..
Remove-Item -Path D:\Folder -Include $thesefiles -Recurse -WhatIf
or in one swoop without loading a variable:
Remove-Item -Path D:\Folder -Include $(gc .\mylistoffilesiwanttodelete.txt) -Recurse -WhatIf
Again, I'm using -WhatIf for testing. Also, I've noticed different behaviors in the past with get-childitem on different versions of PowerShell. I tested these with 5.1
Change directory from following powershell command
Following command will allow you to delete .txt files in specific directory
Get-ChildItem C:\*.txt -file -r | remove-item
The below script doesn't error out and it doesn't work. I have trapped it inside of a try catch block and that isn't working either. I am attempting to move only pdb, and dll files to a certain folder. However, when I run this script, the dll's and pdb's aren't moved. I probably have an order of operations mixup or something, but I thought this script should have worked...
gci -path $FromPath -Include ("*.dll", "*.pdp") | ? {$_.Name -match "PackageServiceLib|Package.capture.CSE.inc|PackageDBCore|Package.capture|PackageCommon|PackageServiceFramework"} | Copy-item -path $FromPath -destination $ToPath -force
My guess is that your $FromPath variable doesn't specify \* at the end. If you don't specify that, then your -Include parameter will be useless.
Assuming that a folder named c:\test contains 10 files with a .txt file extension, consider the difference between this:
Get-ChildItem -Path c:\test -Include *.txt;
And this:
Get-ChildItem -Path c:\test\* -Include *.txt;
The first command will yield no output, because you are getting the directory, not the children of the directory. In the second command, we are specifying that we want everything that is a child of the directory, except we only want the items that match the -Include parameter.