Proper way to rename solution (and directories) in Visual Studio

Question

I have a rather involved Visual Studio solution (2010, but it shouldn't matter) that I need to rename.

I want to rename the folders to match the new solution name, but I can't figure out a way to refactor the folder names automatically, and going through every single project file will be painful.

Is there an official way to do this?

Praseodymium

.Net 6 with VS2022, try this answer: https://mcmap.net/q/53767/-how-can-i-rename-a-project-folder-from-within-visual-studio – Komatik

Answer 1

Manually edit .sln file

This method is entirely aimed at renaming the directory for the project, as viewed in Windows Explorer.

This method does not suffer from the problems in the Remove/add project file method below (references disappearing), but it can result in problems if your project is under source control (see notes below). This is why step 2 (backup) is so important.

1. Close Visual Studio.
2. Create a backup of your .sln file (you can always roll back).
3. Imagine you want to rename directory Project1 to Project2.
4. If not using source control, rename the folder from Project1 to Project2 using Windows Explorer.
5. If using source control, rename the folder from Project1 to Project2 using the functions supplied by source control. This preserves the history of the file. For example, with TortoiseSVN, right click on the file, select TortoiseSVN .. Rename.
6. In the .sln file, edit all instances of Project1 to be Project2, using a text editor like NotePad.
7. Restart Visual Studio, and everything will work as before, but with the project in a different directory.

You can also see renaming solution manually or post which describes this manual process.

Advantages

• You can make the directory within Windows Explorer match the project name within the solution.
• This method does not remove any references from other projects to this file (an advantage over the Remove/add project file method, see my other answer below).

Warnings

• It's important to back everything up into a .zip file before renaming anything, as this method can create issues with source control.
• If your project is under source control, it may create issues if you rename files or directories outside of source control (using Windows Explorer). Its preferable to rename the file using the source control framework itself, if you can, to preserve the history of that file (check out the context menu on a right click - it may have a function to rename the file).

Update 2014-11-02

ReSharper has added an automated method for achieving the same result as the manual method above. If the namespace is underlined with a squiggly blue line, click on the action pyramid icon to either:

• Rename the namespace to match the directory name in Windows Explorer, or;
• Rename the directory in Windows Explorer to match the namespace.

In the second case, the final word defines the new directory name in Windows Explorer, e.g. if we changed the namespace to ViewModel2, it would offer to move the file to folder ViewModel2.

However, this will not necessarily update files in source control, so you may still have to use the manual method.

Update 2018-01-31

Tested with Visual Studio 2008, 2010, 2012, 2013, 2015, 2017 Update 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.

Update 2020-05-02

Tested with Visual Studio 2019.

Update 2021-11-19

Retested. Still works.

Update 2022-11-30

Latest version of Git should auto-detect file renames, so no extra care is needed to preserve the history of diffs.

Cnidus

note: even with VS2012 it is necessary to restart because otherwise it can get confused and you get stupid errors – Lubet

"If you have source control, you will lose the history of the file" this is a bit of a major disadvantage for us (auditing etc) are there are suggested routes whilst maintaining the history? – Cain

@Cain I've updated the answer to address your question. If you rename any files or folders using the source control framework, rather than using Windows Explorer, then you will preserve the history of the file. – Cnidus

Visual Studio is such a powerful program, but this feature is not included? wow.. – Sacksen

What do you mean by 'Works well with the Visual Studio 2015.' ? Is that just renaming work without any issues on VS 2015 ? We don't need to do any extra work on VS 2015 ? – Litigious

@Litigious Read the question - this is about renaming the folder the project is in, as viewed in Windows Explorer. This is not supported by default in Visual Studio, thus the large number of upvotes. – Cnidus

I read the question.But your post under the 'Update 2015-12-30' was misunderstanding.After my comment above you have corrected it.Now its fine. – Litigious

Even after following the solution described by @Contango, I was still getting and error: The OwinStartup attribute discovered in assembly ... startup new name which conflicted with old name. I went through the obj and bin folders and deleted any file with the old name, leaving everything else intact. Restarted vs with my newly named project and it ran like a charm! Thank! – Stomachache

Perhaps the directory structure has changed with VS 2017, because the manual editing of .sln file does not work with 2017. When I create a new Xamarin cross platform app named App1 (let's say), I get a a folder called App1, with these files/folders underneath: App1/App1.sln, App1/App1/App1, App1/App1/App1.iOS, App1/App1/App1.Android, App1/App1/App1.UWP. Tried renaming just the topmost App1 to App2 with your method, didn't work. Tried renaming App1/App1 to App1/App2, didnt work. App1/App1 to App2/App2, didn't work. Seem to get one of 'load failed' or 'unavailable' when I restart VS. – Kingmaker

@Kingmaker May This may be specific to Xamarin projects. Other types of projects will work just fine. – Cnidus

@LucaSteeb Yup, reportedly 2012 was some 50 million lines of code. #monolithic – Distil

Answer 2

To rename a solution:

1. In Solution Explorer, right-click the project, select Rename, and enter a new name.

2. In Solution Explorer, right-click the project and select Properties. On the Application tab, change the "Assembly name" and "Default namespace".

3. In the main cs file (or any other code files), rename the namespace declaration to use the new name. For this right-click the namespace and select Refactor > Rename enter a new name. For example: namespace WindowsFormsApplication1

4. Change the AssemblyTitle and AssemblyProduct in Properties/AssemblyInfo.cs.

   [assembly: AssemblyTitle("New Name Here")]
   [assembly: AssemblyDescription("")]
   [assembly: AssemblyConfiguration("")]
   [assembly: AssemblyCompany("")]
   [assembly: AssemblyProduct("New Name Here")]
   [assembly: AssemblyCopyright("Copyright ©  2013")]
   [assembly: AssemblyTrademark("")]
   [assembly: AssemblyCulture("")]
   

5. Delete bin and obj directories physically.

6. Rename the project physical folder directory.

7. Open the SLN file (within notepad or any editor) and change the path to the project.

8. Clean and Rebuild the project.

Clavicembalo

It perfectly works! But you need to manage your Dataset manually (if you have attached to your project). – Sunny

Works! I also had to rename the .sln and .suo files. And I found step 4 was already accomplished by one of the previous steps in my VS 2010 – Mangrove

I'm confused a bit as to whether or not you are referring to the Solution or the Project in step 1. I want to rename both, each with a different name. What would the new namespace be, the new Solution name or the Project name? Thanks for clarifying this for me. – Autolithography

This worked for me too (using VS2013), but it missed out the project paths in the \Packages\repositories.config file. – Hasseman

Step 8 failed for me because of an error finding the csproj file. Had to close and re-open solution, then it worked. – Judaize

This didnt work for me because I have Views in my project that reference models. – Copyread

@Copyread you need to change the namespaces... as mentioned in step 3 – Moran

Had to close Visual Studio after step 5 or the steps would fail – Chalybeate

Before attempting to reopen the solution I used a search tool, Agent Ransack, to search all files and folders for any reference to the previous solution/project name and correct them. There were several places I needed to do this. – Galton

7.5: Remove project in visual studio and add it again (Right click Solution > Add > Existing Project...) – Decollate

As someone else mentioned, Step 4 had already been done automatically. Step 6 (renaming the Project folder) I could do inside Visual Studio, in the Solution Explorer Folder View. I then exited VS and renamed the solution folder and solution file. – Merrymaking

Don't forget to update the ProjectReference Include path, in the .csproj file In cases where the project is more than one...That's the final step I took. – Geneticist

Answer 3

The Rename operations in Visual Studio only change the filename, i.e. *.prj for a project, and *.sln for a solution. You will need to rename folders separately using the filesystem, and you will need to remove and re-add the projects since they will have new folder names. However, note that the solution and project files are respectively text and xml files. You could write your own program that parses them and renames both the folder names, filenames, and fixes the project/solution files internally.

Acrid

Are there free tools available that do this already? I couldn't find anything. – Praseodymium

The only thing that might help you is CoolCommands 4.0 "Add Projects From Folder", so that after you have removed/renamed the project folders you can add them all back at once: sharptoolbox.com/tools/coolcommands – Acrid

sublime text 2 has regex search and replace functionalities that make it easier to deal with this. – Encephalomyelitis

Answer 4

You can also export template and then create a new project from the exported template changing the name as you prefer

Coffeng

This worked for me as well. I had to make one adjustment, though. I was using the entity framework in a web application, and it left the old .dll files under the original project name, so I had to hunt down why I was getting some type of duplicate error for the table classes. Once I removed those from the project, it worked fine. Hopefully this helps. And thanks, Edoardo! – Deedeeann

This is absolutely the best way to do it, refer to msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/… to see where to move your exported template in order to find it in "New Project" dialog. – Wiles

works in VS2022 – Noisome

Answer 5

Below is a step-by-step way of renaming your entire solution in Visual Studio 2013

Assuming we're changing a project named "HelloWorld.ui" to "Section1to5.ui"

1. Go to solution explorer (screenshot below), right click on the project that you wish to rename and select "Rename". Enter the new name that you desire.

2. Right click on the Project that you have just renamed, and click on "Properties". Under the Application tab, change the "Assembly name" and "Default namespace".

3. In the main Program.cs file (or any other code files that you may have created), rename the namespace declaration to use the new name. For this right-click the namespace and select Refactor > Rename enter a new name. For example:

   namespace HelloWorld.ui ----> namespace Section1to5.ui

4. Next, expand the "Properties" and double click on AssemblyInfo.cs file. You will notice the below code fragment:

[assembly: AssemblyTitle("HelloWorld.ui")]
[assembly: AssemblyDescription("")]
[assembly: AssemblyConfiguration("")]
[assembly: AssemblyCompany("Microsoft")]
[assembly: AssemblyProduct("HelloWorld.ui")]
[assembly: AssemblyCopyright("Copyright © Microsoft 2015")]
[assembly: AssemblyTrademark("")]
[assembly: AssemblyCulture("")]

You need to change the AssemblyTitle and AssemblyProduct in Properties/AssemblyInfo.cs to the new name, in this example from "HelloWorld.ui" to "Section1to5.ui". Once you're done changing the name, save and close Visual Studio.

5. In the project directory, go inside the folder "HelloWorld.ui" and delete the "bin" and "obj" directories.

6. Once you're done, rename the folder "HelloWorld.ui" to the new project name.

7. Open the renamed solutions file with a text editor such as Notepad or Notepad++ and edit the following line:

   Project("{FAE04EC0-301F-11D3-BF4B-00C04F79EFBC}") = "HelloWorld.ui", "HelloWorld.ui\HelloWorld.ui.csproj", "{39FC65A3-3AE7-4EC9-B8F7-74F971636C70}"

Replace all the instances of "HelloWorld.ui" the new name that you've selected for your project, in this case "Section1to5.ui". This changes the path of the project to the renamed directory in step 6.

8. Open the solutions file with visual studio, and clean and rebuild the project.

9. You may notice that the "Debug/Run" button has been replaced by the "Attach" button. If this happens, simply right click on the project and choose the "Set as StartUp project" option. Alternatively, click on Tools>Customize>Commands>Add command>Debug and add the button.

You're done renaming the project, if you have any doubts feel free to post and I'd be glad to help out!

Shutz

Hey. Worked for me! Using VS 2019 which actually automated a couple of your steps like the AssemblyInfo.cs file and the .sln file. Whew! Good deal. Now my app's name reflects it's business name. Cheers. – Overrule

Answer 6

2021 Update:

renameproject made this effortless. A simple CLI tool to use, it even creates a git commit on success.

https://github.com/ModernRonin/ProjectRenamer

---

Old answer:

I've used the Visual Studio extension "Full Rename Project" to successfully rename projects in an ASP.NET Core 2 solution.

I used ReSharper then to adjust the namespace (right click on project, refactor, adjust namespaces...)

https://github.com/kuanysh-nabiyev/RenameProjectVsExtension

Vaseline

Answer 7

Delete your bin and obj subfolders to remove a load of incorrect reference then use windows to search for old name.

Edit any code or xml files found and rebuild, should be ok now.

Simonasimonds

Answer 8

Remove/add project file method

This method is entirely aimed at renaming the directory for the project, as viewed in Windows Explorer.

1. Backup your entire project using something like GIT, SVN, or WinZip (important!).
2. Within the solution in Visual Studio, remove the project.
3. Rename the directory in Windows Explorer.
4. Add the project back in again within Visual Studio.

Advantages

• You can make the directory within Windows Explorer match the project name within the solution.

Disadvantages

• If you remove a library, it removes any references to the said library from other projects. The solution may not compile after this until you add the references to said library back in (this is quite easy). This is the reason why step 1 (backup) is so important.
• If you have source control, you will lose the history of the file.

Right-clicking on a project and selecting "Open Folder in Windows Explorer" is useful to keep track of where the project is stored while you are performing this process.

Cnidus

WinZip??? I sure hope you're using real source control and not making zip file backups of your code. If you, or anyone else reading this, are, then please check out try.github.io and give it a shot on a test project. You won't go back! – Crankcase

I read your comment Mister @MattKlein and you were right :D Thanks! – Inlet

@Matt Klein Totally agree, updated to recommend GIT or SVN as well. – Cnidus

You can maintain history in version control with this method, if you rename the directory of the project in version control before adding it again in Visual Studio. Most tools will match the new directory name in version control and on disk and will work just fine (e.g. SourceGear Vault does this). – Greenburg

Answer 9

I tried the Visual Studio Project Renamer, but, it threw exceptions in the few cases where I tried it.

I have had good success with CopyWiz.

I am in no way affiliated with them, and I have not yet paid for it, but I may have to soon, as it is the only tool that seems to work for both my C# and C++ projects. I do hope they make a little money, and continue to improve it, though.

Gymnosperm

Answer 10

Using the "Find in Files" function of Notepad++ worked fine for me (ctrl + H, Find in Files).

http://notepad-plus-plus.org/download/v6.2.2.html

Pyrex

Answer 11

You can:

1. click file-> new ->create project from existing project

2. select your original file, eg. solution 1 and input the new file name solution 2

3. change the project name in the new solution 2

Gumbotil

I quite like this approach is it down-voted for a particular reason? – Sirocco

locked up my machine close to the end - on Visual Studio 2017 – Voltammeter

Answer 12

If you are Creating a Website in Visual Studio 2010. You can change the project name as follows.

Step 1: In Visual Studio 2010 the SLN file will be stored under project folder within Visual studio 2010 and Source files are stored under Website folder within Visual Studio 2010.

Step 2: Rename the folder by right click on that folder forward by Rename which contains your SLN project.

Step 3: Rename the SLN file name by right click on that SLN file forward by Rename.

Step 4: Rename the folder that contains Source of that SLN file under Website in Visual Studio 2010.

Step 5: Then finally Double click Your SLN file and change the root of your SLN source folder.

Cursor

Answer 13

I'm new to VS. I just had that same problem: Needed to rename an started project after a couple weeks work. This what I did and it worked.

1. Just in case, make a backup of your folder Project, although you won't be touching it, but just in case!
2. Create a new project and save it using the name you wish for your 'new' project, meaning the name you want to change your 'old' project to.
3. Build it. After that you'll have a Project with the name you wanted but that it does not anything at all but open a window (a Windows Form App in my case).
4. With the new proyect opened, click on Project->Add Existing Ítem and using Windows Explorer locate your 'old' folder Project and select all the files under ...Visual Studio xxx\Projects\oldApp\oldApp
5. Select all files in there (.vb, .resx) and add them to your 'new' Project (the one that should be already opened).
6. Almost last step would be to open your Project file using the Solution
   Explorer and in the 1st tab change the default startup form to the form it should be.
7. Rebuild everything.

Maybe more steps but less or no typing at all, just some mouse clicks. Hope it helps :)

Mosul

Answer 14

If you have problems with loading Shared projects, like Xamarin, remember to change reference to shared libs in csproj files. I developed a CocosSharp game and Droid/iOS/WP81 projects didn't want to load. I had to change the line below in every csproj file (Driod/iOS/WP81) which referenced Shared lib. That was caused because of folder names change, so replace YOUR_PREVIOUS_NAMESPACE with your new names of folders.

<Import Project="..\YOUR_PREVIOUS_NAMESPACE.Shared\EmptyProject.Shared.projitems" Label="Shared" />

Also, I noticed that for .Driod projects, assembly name in project properties cannot be changed using Visual Studio (I use 2015). I had to change assembly name manually in the .Droid.csproj file.

<AssemblyName>YourNameSpace</AssemblyName>

Then I loaded solution and in project properties view new name appeared. After rebuilding dll with that name was generated.

Daytime

Answer 15

The only solution which works for me on Visual Studio 2013 in a WEB project:

Lets say I want to rename "project1" to be "project2". Lets say the physical path to my .sln file is: c:\my\path\project1\project1.sln

so the path to my .csproj file as well as the bin and the obj folders should be: c:\my\path\project1\project1\

1. Open the solution in VS by double clicking the project1.sln file.

2. In Solution Explorer, right-click the project (NOT the solution!!!), select Rename, and enter a new name.

3. In Solution Explorer, right-click the project and select Properties. On the Application tab, change the "Assembly name" and "Default namespace".

4. In the main CS file (or any other code files like Global.asax for example), rename the namespace declaration to use the new name. For this right-click the namespace and select Refactor > Rename enter a new name. For example:

namespace project1

4.1 In Solution Explorer, right-click the project (NOT the solution!!!), select Rename, and enter a new name.

5. Make sure: the AssemblyTitle and AssemblyProduct in Properties/AssemblyInfo.cs are set to the new name ("project2").

1 [assembly: AssemblyTitle("New Name Here")] 2 [assembly: AssemblyDescription("")] 3 [assembly: AssemblyConfiguration("")] 4 [assembly: AssemblyCompany("")] 5 [assembly: AssemblyProduct("New Name Here")] 6 [assembly: AssemblyCopyright("Copyright © 2013")] 7 [assembly: AssemblyTrademark("")] 8 [assembly: AssemblyCulture("")]

6. Close the Visual Studio.

7. Delete bin and obj directories physically.

8. Rename the parent folder and the source folder to the new name (project2):

In the example: c:\my\path\project1\project1

will be: c:\my\path\project2\project2

9. Rename the SLN file name by right click on that SLN file forward by Rename.

10. Then finally open the SLN file (within notepad or any editor) and copy and replace (Ctrl+h) any old name to the new name.

11. Open VS and click BUILD -> Clean Solution

12. click Build -> Build solution and then F5 to run...

13. Note1: If you get something like this: Compilation Error CS0246: The type or namespace name 'project2' could not be found (are you missing a using directive or an assembly reference?)

Source File: c:\Users\Username\AppData\Local\Temp\Temporary ASP.NET Files\root\78dd917f\d0836ce4\App_Web_index.cshtml.a8d08dba.b0mwjmih.0.cs

Then go to the "Temporary ASP.NET Files" folder and delete everything.

14. Note2: If you are trying to do "save as" to a new named project and to keep also the old one, consider duplicating your db by modifying the connectionStrings in web.config and also by re-starting migrations if you have one in the project.

Bartholemy

Answer 16

I have followed https://gist.github.com/n3dst4/b932117f3453cc6c56be link and I was able to renamed my entire solution successfully.

Jeane

Answer 17

along with answer of this link

https://mcmap.net/q/73899/-proper-way-to-rename-solution-and-directories-in-visual-studio

rename these files. I renamed my project to MvcMovie and it works fine

Mediatize

Answer 18

If, after following the suggested solution, you have managed to have a new solution renamed (suppose from www.oldsite.com to www.newsite.com), but still have the old Web Site project name because you have an old "ASP.Net Web Site", then follow this additional steps (suppose from project1 to project2).

• install and old Visual Studio 2017
• open the project with it, right click on the project -> add -> new project.
• Select "Installed -> Visual C# -> Web -> Previous Versions -> ASP.NET Empty Web Site" and name it "www.newsite.com"
• Move all the files and folders from Visual Studio 2017, from oldsite to newsite until the oldsite remains empty.
• Right click on "www.oldsite.com" and remove it.

You can now save everything now and open it back again with Visual Studio 2022. All this is needed only because VS2019/VS2020 do not support "old" ASP.Net Web Site creation, but only editing.

Mezzosoprano

Answer 19

If you want to rename the solution, you can follow the steps below.

1. Backup.First things first, make sure to always create a backup file.Simply copy your project to a different directory.

2. In Solution Explorer, right-click the project, select Rename, and enter a new name.

3. In Solution Explorer, right-click the project and select Properties. On the Application tab, change the "Assembly name" and "Default namespace".

4. Open any .cs and rename all namespace

5. Change the AssemblyTitle and AssemblyProduct in Properties/AssemblyInfo.cs.

6. Delete bin and obj directories physically.

7. Rename the project physical folder directory.

8. Open the Sln file (within notepad or any editor) and change the path to the project.

9. Cleans and Rebuild the project

Details ...https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/1028483/rename-solution-and-related-projects-in-a-aspnet-w.html

Pines

Answer 20

To rename a website:

http://www.c-sharpcorner.com/Blogs/46334/rename-website-project-in-visual-studio-2013.aspx

locate and edit IISExpress's applicationhost.config, found here: C:\Users{username}\Documents\IISExpress\config

Pothead