tl;dr (also applies to Windows):
The conceptual about_Profiles help topic describes PowerShell's profiles (initialization files).
The automatic $PROFILE variable contains a string that is the path of the initialization file for the current user and the current PowerShell host environment (typically, the terminal a.k.a console).
Additional profile files are defined - along the dimensions of (a) all-users vs. current-user and (b) all host environments vs. the current one - which are exposed via properties that the $PROFILE string variable is decorated with, which makes them nontrivial to discover - see below.
None of the profile files exist by default, and in some case even their parent directories may not; the bottom section of this answer shows programmatic on-demand creation and updating of the $PROFILE file.
Olaf provided the crucial pointer in comment:
$PROFILE | select * # short for: $profile | Select-Object -Property *
shows all profile file locations, whether or not the individual profile files exist.
E.g., on my Ubuntu machine with PowerShell installed in /home/jdoe/.powershell, I get:
AllUsersAllHosts : /home/jdoe/.powershell/profile.ps1
AllUsersCurrentHost : /home/jdoe/.powershell/Microsoft.PowerShell_profile.ps1
CurrentUserAllHosts : /home/jdoe/.config/powershell/profile.ps1
CurrentUserCurrentHost : /home/jdoe/.config/powershell/Microsoft.PowerShell_profile.ps1
Length : 62
Note the presence of the [string] type's native Length property, which you could omit if you used
$PROFILE | select *host* instead.
That you can get the profile locations that way is not obvious, given that $PROFILE is a string variable (type [string]).
PowerShell decorates that [string] instance with NoteProperty members reflecting all profile locations, which is why select (Select-Object) is able to extract them.
Outputting just $PROFILE - i.e. the string value - yields /home/jdoe/.config/powershell/Microsoft.PowerShell_profile.ps1, i.e. the same path as its CurrentUserCurrentHost property, i.e. the path of the user-specific profile file specific to the current PowerShell host environment (typically, the terminal aka console).[1]
You can verify the presence of these properties with reflection as follows, (which reveals their values too):
$PROFILE | Get-Member -Type NoteProperty
This means that you can also use regular property access and tab completion to retrieve individual profile locations; e.g.:
# Use tab-completion to find a specific profile location.
# Expands to .Length first, then cycles through the profile-location properties.
$profile.<tab>
# Open the all-users, all-hosts profiles for editing.
# Note: Only works if the file already exists.
# Also, you must typically run as admin to modify all-user profiles.
Invoke-Item $profile.AllUsersAllHosts
Convenience functions for getting profile locations and opening profiles for editing:
The code below defines:
Get-Profile enumerates profiles, showing their location and whether they exist on a given machine.
Edit-Profile opens profile(s) for editing (use -Force to create them on demand); note that modifying all-user profiles typically requires running as admin.
function Get-Profile {
<#
.SYNOPSIS
Gets the location of PowerShell profile files and shows whether they exist.
#>
[CmdletBinding(PositionalBinding=$false)]
param (
[Parameter(Position=0)]
[ValidateSet('AllUsersAllHosts', 'AllUsersCurrentHost', 'CurrentUserAllHosts', 'CurrentUserCurrentHost')]
[string[]] $Scope
)
if (-not $Scope) {
$Scope = 'AllUsersAllHosts', 'AllUsersCurrentHost', 'CurrentUserAllHosts', 'CurrentUserCurrentHost'
}
foreach ($thisScope in $Scope) {
[pscustomobject] @{
Scope = $thisScope
FilePath = $PROFILE.$thisScope
Exists = (Test-Path -PathType Leaf -LiteralPath $PROFILE.$thisScope)
}
}
}
function Edit-Profile {
<#
.SYNOPSIS
Opens PowerShell profile files for editing. Add -Force to create them on demand.
#>
[CmdletBinding(PositionalBinding=$false, DefaultParameterSetName='Select')]
param (
[Parameter(Position=0, ValueFromPipelineByPropertyName, ParameterSetName='Select')]
[ValidateSet('AllUsersAllHosts', 'AllUsersCurrentHost', 'CurrentUserAllHosts', 'CurrentUserCurrentHost')]
[string[]] $Scope = 'CurrentUserCurrentHost'
,
[Parameter(ParameterSetName='All')]
[switch] $All
,
[switch] $Force
)
begin {
$scopes = New-Object Collections.Generic.List[string]
if ($All) {
$scopes = 'AllUsersAllHosts', 'AllUsersCurrentHost', 'CurrentUserAllHosts', 'CurrentUserCurrentHost'
}
}
process {
if (-not $All) { $scopes.Add($Scope) }
}
end {
$filePaths = foreach ($sc in $scopes) { $PROFILE.$sc }
$extantFilePaths = foreach ($filePath in $filePaths) {
if (-not (Test-Path -LiteralPath $filePath)) {
if ($Force) {
if ((New-Item -Force -Type Directory -Path (Split-Path -LiteralPath $filePath)) -and (New-Item -Force -Type File -Path $filePath)) {
$filePath
}
} else {
Write-Verbose "Skipping nonexistent profile: $filePath"
}
} else {
$filePath
}
}
if ($extantFilePaths.Count) {
Write-Verbose "Opening for editing: $extantFilePaths"
Invoke-Item -LiteralPath $extantFilePaths
} else {
Write-Warning "The implied or specified profile file(s) do not exist yet. To force their creation, pass -Force."
}
}
}
[1] PowerShell considers the current-user, current-host profile the profile of interest, which is why $PROFILE's string value contains that value. Note that in order to decorate a [string] instance with note properties, Add-Member alone is not enough; you must use the following idiom: $decoratedString = $string | Add-Member -PassThru propName propValue - see the Add-Member help topic.
