How do I get only directories using Get-ChildItem?

Question

I'm using PowerShell 2.0 and I want to pipe out all the subdirectories of a certain path. The following command outputs all files and directories, but I can't figure out how to filter out the files.

Get-ChildItem c:\mypath -Recurse

I've tried using $_.Attributes to get the attributes but then I don't know how to construct a literal instance of System.IO.FileAttributes to compare it to. In cmd.exe it would be

dir /b /ad /s

Oleta

Answer 1

For PowerShell 3.0 and greater:

Get-ChildItem -Directory

You can also use the aliases dir, ls, and gci

---

For PowerShell versions less than 3.0:

The FileInfo object returned by Get-ChildItem has a "base" property, PSIsContainer. You want to select only those items.

Get-ChildItem -Recurse | ?{ $_.PSIsContainer }

If you want the raw string names of the directories, you can do

Get-ChildItem -Recurse | ?{ $_.PSIsContainer } | Select-Object FullName

Janinejanis

Wish that was aliased to "IsFolder". – Janinejanis

xcud: Not every hierarchy represented by a PSDrive is folder-based. – Larisa

The semantic gap between "container" and "folder" is not one you can drive a truck through. – Janinejanis

@xcud: See iraSenthil's answer. -Directory and -File also works on Get-ChildItem. No need to use the PSIsContainer attribute directly. – Klein

(Get-ChildItem | ?{ $_.PSIsContainer } | Select Name).Name – Songful

@Janinejanis Just make it one. Update-TypeData -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue -TypeName "System.IO.DirectoryInfo" -MemberType ScriptProperty -MemberName "IsFolder" -Value {return $this.PSIsContainer} -Force (Don't really do this but if you really insisted on having it....it's an option) – Decrepitate

Answer 2

In PowerShell 3.0, it is simpler:

Get-ChildItem -Directory #List only directories
Get-ChildItem -File #List only files

Gere

dir is an alias to Get-ChildItem – Overelaborate

@crashmstr Are you sure? I checked on my PS4.0. For me, dir was aliased to Get-ChildItem, and the -Directory and -File options worked as described. I used commands echo $PSVersionTable, help dir, dir -Directory and dir -File to come up with this comment. – Oleta

This should be the answer – Truelove

ls and dir are aliases of Get-ChildItem pick your poison – Personnel

Answer 3

Use

Get-ChildItem -dir #lists only directories
Get-ChildItem -file #lists only files

If you prefer aliases, use

ls -dir #lists only directories
ls -file #lists only files

or

dir -dir #lists only directories
dir -file #lists only files

To recurse subdirectories as well, add -r option.

ls -dir -r #lists only directories recursively
ls -file -r #lists only files recursively 

Tested on PowerShell 4.0, PowerShell 5.0 (Windows 10), PowerShell Core 6.0 (Windows 10, Mac, and Linux), and PowerShell 7.0 (Windows 10, Mac, and Linux).

Note: On PowerShell Core, symlinks are not followed when you specify the -r switch. To follow symlinks, specify the -FollowSymlink switch with -r.

Note 2: PowerShell is now cross-platform, since version 6.0. The cross-platform version was originally called PowerShell Core, but the the word "Core" has been dropped since PowerShell 7.0+.

Get-ChildItem documentation: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/module/microsoft.powershell.management/get-childitem

Skilled

This won't work in Powershell 2.0 which was the specific need of the OP. the -[/Dir/Directory] are not valid parameters in Powershell 2.0 – Strangury

Answer 4

A cleaner approach:

Get-ChildItem "<name_of_directory>" | where {$_.Attributes -match'Directory'}

I wonder if PowerShell 3.0 has a switch that only returns directories; it seems like a logical thing to add.

Electrotonus

FYI powershell 3.0 adds the -Directory and -File flags – Nastassia

Answer 5

Use:

dir -r | where { $_ -is [System.IO.DirectoryInfo] }

Gariepy

Answer 6

From PowerShell v2 and newer (k represents the folder you are beginning your search at):

Get-ChildItem $Path -attributes D -Recurse

If you just want folder names only, and nothing else, use this:

Get-ChildItem $Path -Name -attributes D -Recurse

If you are looking for a specific folder, you could use the following. In this case, I am looking for a folder called myFolder:

Get-ChildItem $Path -attributes D -Recurse -include "myFolder"

Afrikander

And using PS 3.0 o 4.0 ? – Ensheathe

The Attributes parameter doesn't seem to be in PS2, it gives an error "A parameter cannot be found that matches parameter name 'Attributes'". It works ok in PS3. – Frontal

Answer 7

Less text is required with this approach:

ls -r | ? {$_.mode -match "d"}

Northwesterly

This is the one that I'd use. – Gentlemanatarms

Even shorter: ls -r | ? { $_.mode -match "d" } – Northwesterly

This doesn't find compressed folders – Yamamoto

Because a compressed folder is a zip file – Explanatory

It is not always useful to recurse everything. You could have an extremely deep and bushy tree where you only are interested in directories exactly two levels down; searching thirty levels down is a waste of time. – Unwarranted

Answer 8

The accepted answer mentions

Get-ChildItem -Recurse | ?{ $_.PSIsContainer } | Select-Object FullName

to get a "raw string". But in fact objects of type Selected.System.IO.DirectoryInfo will be returned. For raw strings the following can be used:

Get-ChildItem -Recurse | ?{ $_.PSIsContainer } | % { $_.FullName }

The difference matters if the value is concatenated to a string:

• with Select-Object suprisingly foo\@{FullName=bar}
• with the ForEach-operator the expected: foo\bar

Hauler

Select-Object will actually return objects of type PSCustomObject. While you can use % (which is ForEach-Object) to get the raw strings like you did, you can also use Select-Object -ExpandProperty FullName – Gorged

Answer 9

Use:

dir -Directory -Recurse | Select FullName

This will give you an output of the root structure with the folder name for directories only.

Weis

Answer 10

Use:

Get-ChildItem \\myserver\myshare\myshare\ -Directory | Select-Object -Property name |  convertto-csv -NoTypeInformation  | Out-File c:\temp\mydirectorylist.csv

Which does the following

• Get a list of directories in the target location: Get-ChildItem \\myserver\myshare\myshare\ -Directory
• Extract only the name of the directories: Select-Object -Property name
• Convert the output to CSV format: convertto-csv -NoTypeInformation
• Save the result to a file: Out-File c:\temp\mydirectorylist.csv

Xe

It would be great if you can explain each step so that more people can see what is going on. – Jaunty

This won't work in Powershell 2.0 which was the specific need of the OP. the -[/Dir/Directory] are not valid parameters in Powershell 2.0 – Strangury

Answer 11

You'll want to use Get-ChildItem to recursively get all folders and files first. And then pipe that output into a Where-Object clause which only take the files.

# one of several ways to identify a file is using GetType() which
# will return "FileInfo" or "DirectoryInfo"
$files = Get-ChildItem E:\ -Recurse | Where-Object {$_.GetType().Name -eq "FileInfo"} ;

foreach ($file in $files) {
  echo $file.FullName ;
}

Eck

Answer 12

A bit more readable and simple approach could be achieved with the script below:

$Directory = "./"
Get-ChildItem $Directory -Recurse | % {
    if ($_.Attributes -eq "Directory") {
        Write-Host $_.FullName
    }
}

Hope this helps!

Hydrochloride

$_.Attributes -eq "Directory" will fail as soon as the Directory has any attribute other than Directory i.e. Hidden, System, ReadOnly etc. The right way to do it is $_.Attributes.HasFlag([System.IO.FileAttributes]::Directory) – Fokine

"Directory" -in $_.Attributes would work as well. – Delozier

Answer 13

My solution is based on the TechNet article Fun Things You Can Do With the Get-ChildItem Cmdlet.

Get-ChildItem C:\foo | Where-Object {$_.mode -match "d"}

I used it in my script, and it works well.

Rivers

Answer 14

This question is well and truly answered but thought I'd add something extra as I've just been looking at this.

Get-ChildItem happens to produce two types of objects whereas most commands produce just one.

FileInfo and DirectoryInfo are returned.

You can see this by viewing the 'members' available to this command like so:

Get-ChildItem | Get-Member

• TypeName: System.IO.DirectoryInfo
• TypeName: System.IO.FileInfo

You'll see the various methods and properties available to each type. Note that there are differences. For example that the FileInfo object has a length property but the DirectoryInfo object doesn't.

Anyway, technically, we can return just the directories by isolating the DirectoryInfo object

Get-ChildItem | Where-Object {$_.GetType().Name -eq "DirectoryInfo"}

Obviously as the top answer states the most straightforward solution is to simply use Get-ChildItem -Directory but we now know how to work with multple object types in future :)

Peacoat

This is probably not the easiest way, but it is a helpful insight, thanks! – Geophyte

Answer 15

Use this one:

Get-ChildItem -Path \\server\share\folder\ -Recurse -Force | where {$_.Attributes -like '*Directory*'} | Export-Csv -Path C:\Temp\Export.csv -Encoding "Unicode" -Delimiter ";"

Plethoric

Answer 16

To answer the original question specifically (using IO.FileAttributes):

Get-ChildItem c:\mypath -Recurse | Where-Object {$_.Attributes -band [IO.FileAttributes]::Directory}

I do prefer Marek's solution though:

Where-Object { $_ -is [System.IO.DirectoryInfo] }

Delozier

Answer 17

You can try the PsIsContainer Object

Get-ChildItem -path C:\mypath -Recurse | where {$_.PsIsContainer -eq $true} 

Diapophysis

Is this different from the answer https://mcmap.net/q/99511/-how-do-i-get-only-directories-using-get-childitem (2010)? – Oleta

Answer 18

TRY THE FOLLOWING
dir -Directory -Name

Castlereagh

Answer 19

Here is what I use which gives you both the directory and the filename:

Get-ChildItem "c:\mypath" -Recurse |  ForEach-Object {
    $directory = Split-Path $$_.Fullname -parent
    Write-Host "directory = $directory"
    $file = Split-Path $$_.Fullname -leaf
    Write-Host "file = $file"
}

Ehlers