Rename-Item

Syntax

Rename-Item
      [-Path] <String>
      [-NewName] <String>
      [-Force]
      [-PassThru]
      [-Credential <PSCredential>]
      [-WhatIf]
      [-Confirm]
      [-UseTransaction]
      [<CommonParameters>]

Rename-Item
      -LiteralPath <String>
      [-NewName] <String>
      [-Force]
      [-PassThru]
      [-Credential <PSCredential>]
      [-WhatIf]
      [-Confirm]
      [-UseTransaction]
      [<CommonParameters>]

Description

The Rename-Item cmdlet changes the name of a specified item. This cmdlet does not affect the content of the item being renamed.

You cannot use Rename-Item to move an item, such as by specifying a path together with the new name. To move and rename an item, use the Move-Item cmdlet.

Examples

Example 1: Rename a file

PS C:\> Rename-Item -Path "c:\logfiles\daily_file.txt" -NewName "monday_file.txt"

This command renames the file daily_file.txt to monday_file.txt.

Example 2: Rename and move an item

The first command attempts to rename the project.txt file in the current directory to old-project.txt in the D:\Archive directory. The result is the error shown in the output.

PS C:\> Rename-Item -Path "project.txt" -NewName "d:\archive\old-project.txt"

Rename-Item : Cannot rename because the target specified represents a path or device name.

At line:1 char:12

+ rename-item <<<<  -path project.txt -newname d:\archive\old-project.txt

+ CategoryInfo          : InvalidArgument: (:) [Rename-Item], PSArgumentException

+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : Argument,Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.RenameItemCommand



The second command shows the correct way to move and rename a file by using **Move-Item**. The **Move-Item** cmdlet lets you specify both a new path and a new name in the value of its *Destination* parameter.

PS C:\> Move-Item -Path "project.txt" -Destination "d:\archive\old-project.txt"

This example shows that you cannot use Rename-Item to both rename and move an item. Specifically, you cannot supply a path for the value of the NewName parameter, unless the path is identical to the path specified in the Path parameter. Otherwise, only a new name is permitted.

Example 3: Rename a registry key

PS C:\> Rename-Item -Path "HKLM:\Software\MyCompany\Advertising" -NewName "Marketing"

This command renames a registry key from Advertising to Marketing. When the command is complete, the key is renamed, but the registry entries in the key are unchanged.

Example 4: Rename multiple files

PS C:\> Get-ChildItem *.txt | Rename-Item -NewName { $_.name -Replace '\.txt$','.log' }

This example shows how to use the Replace operator to rename multiple files, even though the NewName parameter does not accept wildcard characters.

This command renames all of the .txt files in the current directory to .log.

The command uses the Get-ChildItem cmdlet to get all of the files in the current folder that have a .txt file name extension. Then, it uses the pipeline operator (|) to send those files to Rename-Item .

The value of NewName is a script block that runs before the value is submitted to the NewName parameter.

In the script block, the $_ automatic variable represents each file object as it comes to the command through the pipeline. The command uses the dot format (.) to get the Name property of each file object. The Replace operator replaces the .txt file name extension of each file with .log.

Because the Replace operator works with regular expressions, the dot in front of txt is interpreted to match any character. To make sure that it matches only a dot (.), it is escaped with a backslash character (\). The backslash character is not required in .log because it is a string, not a regular expression.

To make sure that .txt is an extension, i.e. last part of the string representing the name, a dollar sign ($) is added after \.txt.

Required Parameters

Optional Parameters

Inputs

System.String

You can pipe a string that contains a path to this cmdlet.

Outputs

None or an object that represents the renamed item.

This cmdlet generates an object that represents the renamed item, if you specify the PassThru parameter. Otherwise, this cmdlet does not generate any output.

Notes

• Rename-Item is designed to work with the data exposed by any provider. To list the providers available in your session, type Get-PsProvider . For more information, see about_Providers.

*

Related Links

• Clear-Item
• Copy-Item
• Get-ChildItem
• Get-Item
• Invoke-Item
• Move-Item
• New-Item
• Remove-Item
• Rename-ItemProperty
• Set-Item