By default, the Get-ChildItem cmdlet in PowerShell returns both folders and files in a particular directory.
However, you can use the -File operator to specify that you would only like to get the files and not the folders in a particular directory:
Get-ChildItem c:\users\bobbi\current_data -Recurse -File
This particular example will return only the files located in the following directory:
- c:\users\bobbi\current_data
Also note that you could use the gci alias for Get-ChildItem if you’d like even shorter syntax:
gci c:\users\bobbi\current_data -Recurse -File
The following example shows how to use this syntax in practice.
Example: Use Get-ChildItem to Return Files Only in PowerShell
Suppose we have a folder named current_data saved in the following location:
- c:\users\bobbi\current_data
Suppose that we use the Get-ChildItem cmdlet to return all folders and files in this directory:
Get-ChildItem c:\users\bobbi\current_data -Recurse
The following screenshot shows how to use this syntax in practice:
We can see that this directory contains two folders:
- data2022
- data2023
It also contains five files:
- baseball_data.xlsx
- basketball_data.xlsx
- football_data.xlsx
- hockey_data.xlsx
- new_hockey_data.xlsx
Suppose that we would like to only return the files and not the folders.
We can use the following syntax to do so:
Get-ChildItem c:\users\bobbi\current_data -Recurse -File
The following screenshot shows how to use this syntax in practice:
Notice that only the files are returned this time and not the folders.
We could also use the gci alias for Get-ChildItem to get the same results:
gci c:\users\bobbi\current_data -Recurse -File
The following screenshot shows how to use this syntax in practice:
Once again, only the files are returned and not the folders.
Related Tutorials
The following tutorials explain how to perform other common tasks in PowerShell:
PowerShell: How to Use Get-ChildItem with Filter
PowerShell: How to Use Get-ChildItem to Get Full Path of Files
PowerShell: How to List Files in Directory by Date
