Powershell: Count items in a folder with PowerShell

Question

I'm trying to write a very simple PowerShell script to give me the total number of items (both files and folders) in a given folder (c:\MyFolder). Here's what I've done:

Write-Host ( Get-ChildItem c:\MyFolder ).Count;

The problem is, that if I have 1 or 0 items, the command does not work---it returns nothing.

Any ideas?

This is really old, so here's the quick answer for the old problem: Change your command to `Write-Host @( Get-ChildItem c:\MyFolder ).Count;`. This keeps older versions of Powershell from collapsing/unwrapping the list/array returned by `Get-ChildItem` when there's less than 2 elements in it. — Granger, Nov 17 '21 at 19:18

Stanley De Boer · Accepted Answer · 2023-01-16T15:50:59.220

199

You should use Measure-Object to count things. In this case it would look like:

Write-Host ( Get-ChildItem c:\MyFolder | Measure-Object ).Count;

or if that's too long

Write-Host ( dir c:\MyFolder | measure).Count;

and in PowerShell 4.0 use the measure alias instead of mo

Write-Host (dir c:\MyFolder | measure).Count;

edited Jan 16 '23 at 15:50

answered Feb 05 '13 at 20:46

Stanley De Boer

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How to get count for all folders inside a particular folder? – Mihir Nov 22 '18 at 14:25
THis `Write-Host ( Get-ChildItem c:\MyFolder | Measure-Object ).Count` worked for me – Promise Preston Sep 22 '21 at 13:44
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The `measure` alias *replaces* `mo` *starting from* PowerShell 4.0 – Dominic Grenier Feb 03 '22 at 17:34

score 47 · Answer 2 · answered Nov 13 '14 at 05:48

47

If you need to speed up the process (for example counting 30k or more files) then I would go with something like this..

$filepath = "c:\MyFolder"
$filetype = "*.txt"
$file_count = [System.IO.Directory]::GetFiles("$filepath", "$filetype").Count

answered Nov 13 '14 at 05:48

dariusw

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That is an order of magnitude faster! Thanks. I had a folder with over 29K files in it, and this method returned the count as fast as my finger lifted from the RETURN key. – xizdaqrian Aug 06 '15 at 12:55
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You can recurse this with `[System.IO.Directory]::GetFiles("$filepath", "$filetype",1)` See [here](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/api/system.io.directory.getfiles?view=netframework-4.8) – Cody Ｇ Aug 05 '19 at 18:12
Or filter with regex with `$r = ` and `(Get-ChildItem) -match $r | Select FullName, @{name = "FileCount"; expression = {[System.IO.Directory]::GetFiles($_).Count}}` – pavol.kutaj Mar 27 '21 at 05:03

score 45 · Answer 3 · answered Feb 05 '13 at 18:40

I finally found this link:

https://blogs.perficient.com/microsoft/2011/06/powershell-count-property-returns-nothing/

Well, it turns out that this is a quirk caused precisely because there was only one file in the directory. Some searching revealed that in this case, PowerShell returns a scalar object instead of an array. This object doesn’t have a count property, so there isn’t anything to retrieve.

The solution -- force PowerShell to return an array with the @ symbol:

Write-Host @( Get-ChildItem c:\MyFolder ).Count;

Perfect, thanks. I find it annoying when commandlets try and be "helpful" and vary their return type. — Paul Suart, Jul 08 '14 at 01:18

score 19 · Answer 4 · answered Aug 13 '15 at 12:22

19

Only Files

Get-ChildItem D:\ -Recurse -File | Measure-Object | %{$_.Count}

Only Folders

Get-ChildItem D:\ -Recurse -Directory | Measure-Object | %{$_.Count}

Both

Get-ChildItem D:\ -Recurse | Measure-Object | %{$_.Count}

answered Aug 13 '15 at 12:22

hdev

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On the first one, how would I search for all jpg and png files? – Al Lelopath Jun 14 '16 at 16:54
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@AlLelopath ``Get-ChildItem D:\ -Recurse -File -Include *.jpg,*.png | Measure-Object | %{$_.Count}`` – hdev Jun 17 '16 at 13:03
hi @dhcgn any advice on this https://stackoverflow.com/questions/54916917/powershell-script-to-count-files-only-excluding-folders – rickyProgrammer Feb 28 '19 at 06:02

score 7 · Answer 5 · answered Dec 24 '20 at 02:28

7

You can also use an alias

(ls).Count

answered Dec 24 '20 at 02:28

Daniel Rodas

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This is exactly what I was looking for – mikey Oct 26 '21 at 20:24

score 3 · Answer 6 · answered Mar 11 '16 at 23:01

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Recursively count files in directories in PowerShell 2.0

ls -rec | ? {$_.mode -match 'd'} | select FullName,  @{N='Count';E={(ls $_.FullName | measure).Count}}

answered Mar 11 '16 at 23:01

Valeriy Glushenkov

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score 1 · Answer 7 · answered Feb 14 '18 at 19:33

In powershell you can to use severals commands, for looking for this commands digit: Get-Alias;

So the cammands the can to use are:

write-host (ls MydirectoryName).Count

or

write-host (dir MydirectoryName).Count

or

write-host (Get-ChildrenItem MydirectoryName).Count

score 0 · Answer 8 · answered Sep 27 '19 at 13:02

0

To count the number of a specific filetype in a folder. The example is to count mp3 files on F: drive.

( Get-ChildItme F: -Filter *.mp3 - Recurse | measure ).Count

Tested in 6.2.3, but should work >4.

answered Sep 27 '19 at 13:02

OrigamiEye

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Powershell: Count items in a folder with PowerShell

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