How to Combine Path and File Name in PowerShell (With Example)

Often you may want combine a path and a file name in PowerShell.

The easiest way to do so is by using the Join-Path cmdlet, which was built for this specific task.

You can use the following basic syntax to join a specific path with a specific file name:

Join-Path $my_path $my_filename

This particular example will combine the path specified by the my_path variable with the file name specified by the my_filename variable.

Also note that we can use the New-Item cmdlet along with the Join-Path cmdlet to create a new file by combining a file path and file name:

New-Item -ItemType File (Join-Path $my_path $my_filename)

The following example shows how to use this syntax in practice.

Note: You can use the Join-Path cmdlet to join as many variables together as you’d like.

Example: How to Combine Path and File Name in PowerShell

Suppose that we would like to combine the following two variables in PowerShell in which one variable contains a path and one contains a file name:

We can use the following syntax to do so:

$my_path = "c:/users/bobbi/data2"
$my_filename = "new_data.txt"

Join-Path $my_path $my_filename

The following screenshot shows how to use this syntax in practice:

PowerShell combine path and file name

We can see that the Join-Path cmdlet has successfully joined the path variable and the file name variable into the following string:

We can also use the New-Item cmdlet along with the Join-Path cmdlet to create a new file by combining a file path and file name:

$my_path = "c:/users/bobbi/data2"
$my_filename = "new_data.txt"

New-Item -ItemType File (Join-Path $my_path $my_filename)

The following screenshot shows how to use this syntax in practice:

PowerShell combine path and filename to create new item

We can see that a new file named new_data.txt has been created in the directory located at c:\users\bobbi\data2, as shown in the output.

Note: You can find the complete documentation for the Join-Path cmdlet here.