How can I rename a project folder from within Visual Studio?

Question

My current solution for renaming the project folder is:

Remove the project from the solution.
Rename the folder outside Visual Studio.
Re-add the project to the solution.

Is there a better way?

This answer includes the procedure for TFS and is the best overall answer I've found for this: http://stackoverflow.com/a/10853509/10245 — Tim Abell, May 23 '14 at 22:22
There is no simple, one-click way of doing it. Not from within Visual Studio, anyways. — Matt Hanson, Oct 17 '08 at 06:55
I wont put this as an answer because you shouldnt do it, but doing an agent ransack for the project name and replacing all references to it with the new file name does work if you include all folder and subfolders, and both rename files and also replace text within files. Ive done it several times now, never with more than a few minutes of cleanup afterwards. — kingfrito_5005, Aug 24 '17 at 14:42
For VS 2019, if your project is running, then you cannot rename the folder (your mouse's right click on top of the folder does not display the "Rename" option). Stop the running process and try again. — Marco, Nov 17 '19 at 16:03
@Marco that will only change the project name in VS, not the project folder name. I did that and now my project name is different but the project folder still is the same, even more confusing. As of 2019 I also had to remove the project from the solution, rename the folder and then add the project back. — Filipe Madureira, Dec 11 '19 at 09:44
In [andersjanmyr's solution](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/211241/how-can-i-rename-a-project-folder-from-within-visual-studio/224788#224788): you may press Alt + Enter to bring up the *Properties Page* for the unavailable project and set the "File Path" property there; since it is not available in the right-click context menu of the unavailable project (in Visual Studio 2008). — Ujjwal Singh, Oct 21 '10 at 21:55
With VS 2019 it was super easy for me! Just renamed the project in VS and then updated the oldname reference in .sln in notepad, after that rename the project folder name in directory. That was it. I use git, it already picked up the changes to commit (to remove old_Folder from repo and add new_Folder in pending changes. It just worked fine for me. Just in case you can try this in a separate branch to not mess if something goes wrong. — curiousBoy, Mar 03 '20 at 14:18
Looking at the 3 most highest voted answers, I see that they all involve editing. I prefer answers that do not involve editing. If you prefer not to edit, your method might be the best even in the year 2021. — H2ONaCl, Feb 27 '21 at 07:00
.Net 6 with VS2022, try this answer: https://stackoverflow.com/a/72025102/4393351 — KushalSeth, Apr 27 '22 at 08:02

score 878 · Accepted Answer · edited Dec 18 '19 at 16:21

878

TFS users: If you are using source control that requires you to warn it before your rename files/folders then look at this answer instead which covers the extra steps required.

To rename a project's folder, file (.*proj) and display name in Visual Studio:

Close the solution.
Rename the folder(s) outside Visual Studio. (Rename in TFS if using source control)
Open the solution, ignoring the warnings (answer "no" if asked to load a project from source control).
Go through all the unavailable projects and...
- Open the properties window for the project (highlight the project and press Alt+Enter or F4, or right-click > properties).
- Set the property 'File Path' to the new location.
  - If the property is not editable (as in Visual Studio 2012), then open the .sln file directly in another editor such as Notepad++ and update the paths there instead. (You may need to check-out the solution first in TFS, etc.)
- Reload the project - right-click > reload project.
- Change the display name of the project, by highlighting it and pressing F2, or right-click > rename.

Note: Other suggested solutions that involve removing and then re-adding the project to the solution will break project references.

If you perform these steps then you might also consider renaming the following to match:

Assembly
Default/Root Namespace
Namespace of existing files (use the refactor tools in Visual Studio or ReSharper's inconsistent namespaces tool)

Also consider modifying the values of the following assembly attributes:

AssemblyProductAttribute
AssemblyDescriptionAttribute
AssemblyTitleAttribute

edited Dec 18 '19 at 16:21

Peter Mortensen

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answered Oct 22 '08 at 07:55

andersjanmyr

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For those using source control, I think you'd need to rename the folder in source control too. For me, the above steps didn't do so. – Patrick Szalapski Nov 09 '10 at 14:33
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When using TFS step 2 is actually to rename the folder in source control and then get the latest before reopening the sln. – Amy Patterson Oct 06 '11 at 16:10
One additional note... You may have to recreate your project references within your solution as well. I have a solution with a number of linked class libraries and I had to delete and re-add the references. – CoderMarkus Jul 31 '12 at 15:49
3

The File Path property becomes editable in VS2010 after the folder has been renamed (and VS cannot find the project) – Jimmy Sep 23 '12 at 15:00
1

@AmyPatterson: I think your comment is significant enough to be its own answer. It's the only thing on this page that absolutely worked for me. – Peter Majeed Sep 28 '12 at 18:45
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This didn't work for me in VS 2012; the property is readonly. I had to open the .sln file as text. – Grault Mar 23 '13 at 22:51
If you're trying to do this with an installer / deployment project, VS won't let you update the path. You'll need to close the solution and edit the sln file via text editor, then reopen. – teynon May 06 '13 at 19:31
1

I tried doing this in VS2012, but the File Path was read only, and even if I changed the paths in the *.sln file, the solution still couldn't find my project file. Eventually I figured out how to do it without messing with the *.sln file or other 'hacks'. See [my answer below](http://stackoverflow.com/a/17090927/280392) for a step-by-step guide on how to it, while keeping your source control history. – René Jun 14 '13 at 07:20
The path seems to be editable in VS2013, and according to this excellent answer http://stackoverflow.com/a/10853509/10245 it was in VS2010 too. – Tim Abell May 23 '14 at 22:24
When I rename folder outside VS, I cannot open solution any more... There is no project there. "The project cannot be found". But I can open project itself. I'm using VS2013 – monstr Oct 29 '15 at 07:39
In VS2013 (and probably later versions as well), you no longer need to do the last step, it is intelligent enough to recognize the new project name automatically. – gzak Dec 17 '15 at 23:56
I did this and found afterwards that none of my controller actions worked. They produced a 404. If I added a new controller and action, exactly the same in every way, (apart form controller name), the new one would work. But not the original. After much head scratching (iis log tracing, application.config fiddling turning it off and on again etc...) I **deleted the bin and obj folders** for the project, cleaned and rebuilt. That fixed it. – GPR Nov 21 '16 at 09:19
Used this method to rename WebApi project, corrected all namespaces using resharper, but path in the Global.asax (the one without .cs extension) file was not corrected! I think, you need to add it to instruction – aluky Apr 12 '17 at 19:02
In VS2015 you can change the File Path property with the three dots. But in VS2017 this is not possible anymore (and VS cannot load the project) – HolgerJeromin Apr 06 '18 at 08:13
also remember to rename all project references inside C# code, for example in the using statements in C# classes and Views etc. – Mohammad Apr 18 '19 at 11:42
1

editing the .sln file directly was quick and last step to get it to work for me – Andrew Apr 22 '19 at 21:07
This was the closest for me, but in VS2019 I had to exit VS, rename the folder, modify the .sln to point to the new project within the solution then reload solution. – Zonus Jul 15 '20 at 14:41
Where in the properties settings can I find the change File Path option? – Daniëlle Feb 11 '22 at 09:01
.Net 6 with VS2022, try this answer: https://stackoverflow.com/a/72025102/4393351 – KushalSeth Apr 27 '22 at 08:01
1

This is ridiculous. Why is it so difficult to do something as simple as renaming a folder in what is purported to be a "full-featured" IDE? Note to self: In the future, just use VSCode. – Nathaniel Jones Jan 12 '23 at 22:06
This worked for me in VS2022 with a Razor project - I had to move an entire directory to the wwwroot directory, the existing one I had to delete first, which was concerning - it worked with the first 2 steps for everything but my .tfignore file! – Matthew Beck Jul 05 '23 at 17:53

score 158 · Answer 2 · edited May 12 '20 at 17:58

158

This is straightforward in Visual Studio 2015 (possibly works in older versions)

In Solution Explorer, right click on Main solution → Rename
In Solution Explorer, right click on project (under solution) → Rename
In Solution Explorer, double click, or right click on Properties → goto Application Tab, rename Assembly name and Default namespace to match.
If you wish to also rename the namespace, open one of your class files. Right click the namespace → Rename.... This should search and replace all references to your namespace throughout the project.
Close the project → rename the project folder.
Edit the .sln file in Notepad, and change the path to the csproj, i.e., fu\bar.csproj → bar\bar.csproj.

edited May 12 '20 at 17:58

Jeff Walker Code Ranger

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answered Oct 18 '15 at 08:42

wired00

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You forgot to update project references in dependent projects (if any). – Steven Liekens Nov 06 '15 at 13:11
Remember to apply step 4 to the subproject folder (that was the only step missing for me so that step 6 worked). – Felipe Gutierrez Sep 11 '19 at 19:59
3

As I read it, the question is not asking how to change the display name of the project in VS or the name of the .exe (maybe the asker had already done all this), but asking specifically how to rename the project folder (in the file system) and keep the .sln in sync. So only steps 5 and 6 seem relevant. But it does seem the best workaround for the lack of a way to do it from within VS. – Stewart Oct 01 '20 at 11:24
In Visual 2019, at step 3), double click or right click on properties is ineffective, therefore, i can't go to "Application Tab".. – Nov 12 '20 at 12:59
This worked for me, but just a note that the solution reference in the VS "Open recent" list will still point to the old folder name, giving the appearance that something is messed up. Use the "Open project or solution" wizard to open it fresh. – ChiefMcFrank Feb 19 '21 at 18:20
For VS 22, I was renaming existing project, went with steps 2 and 5. Step 3 is not needed, since they are reading assembly in generic way Step 4 was handled through ReSharper Step 6 is done by VS automatically – Serlok Mar 16 '23 at 01:52

score 115 · Answer 3 · edited Dec 18 '19 at 16:17

115

There is another way doing this, using the *.sol, *csproj files.

Open your solution file.
Search for the *.csproj you would like to change.
It will be like this (relative to the *.sol file):

Project("{FAE04EC0-301F-11D3-BF4B-00C04F79EFBC}") = "Shani.Commands.Impl", "Shani.Commands.Impl\Shani.Commands.Impl.csproj", "{747CFA4B-FC83-419A-858E-5E2DE2B948EE}"
And just change the first part to the new diretory for example:

Impl\Shani.Commands.Impl\Shani.Commands.Impl.csproj
Of course, don't forget to move the whole project to that directory.

edited Dec 18 '19 at 16:17

Peter Mortensen

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answered Oct 17 '08 at 07:05

rabashani

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This worked for me, rather than the accepted answer, which did not work because the FilePath property was read-only for me. – Torben Junker Kjær Feb 07 '13 at 13:12
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thanks, this helped a lot. Also be sure to change the RootNamespace and AssemblyName values as well. – DevDave May 29 '13 at 09:46
This did not work for me in VS2019. Gives warnings about project references not existing and compile errors about missing the namespaces and classes in the referenced project. – Jeff Walker Code Ranger May 12 '20 at 17:57
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This works for me in Visual Studio 2019, with C# projects. It is a rather simple solution. For people who may be having problems when trying to compile, I recommend you fully rebuild the project instead of only compiling. – Unknown Coder May 19 '20 at 01:21

René · Answer 4 · 2019-07-02T20:13:04.723

Man, have I struggled with this. Unfortunately there isn't a one click solution in Visual Studio, but if you're running Visual Studio 2012 and your project is under source control with Team Foundation Server, here is how I got it to work, while keeping the source history:

(Make sure you read @mjv's comment below, as he notes that you can skip step 5-10)

Make sure you have checked in all changes, so you have no pending changes.
Remove the project from the solution, by right clicking and selecting Remove.
Now, in Windows Explorer, rename the project folder.
Go back to Visual Studio, and in Solution Explorer, right click the solution and choose Add -> Existing project. Select the project file for the project you removed in step 2, which should be located in the renamed folder.
Now the project is back in the solution, but the project doesn't seem to be added to source control. To fix that, open Source Control Explorer.
Find the project folder in Source Control Explorer, that corresponds with the project folder on your disk, that you renamed in step 3.
Rename the folder in Source Control Explorer, so it has the same name as the project folder on disk.
Now take a look at your pending changes. You should have changes to the solution file and a rename operation on the project folder.
Do a rebuild and make sure everything compiles correctly. If you had inter-project references to the project you renamed, you need to add them again to the individual projects that referenced it.
You should be all set now. Go and check everything in.

The above guide worked for me. If it doesn't work for you, try and delete your local solution completely, and remove the folder mapping in your workspace. Restart Visual Studio just in case. Make sure you actually deleted the whole solution from your computer. Now readd the solution mapping to your workspace and get the latest version. Now try the above steps. The same applies if something goes wrong while following the above steps. Just delete your solution locally and get the latest source, and you'll have a clean slate to work with.

If you're still having problems, make sure that you haven't changed anything manually in the solution file, or trying other 'tricks' before trying the above steps. If you have changed something and checked it in, you might want to consider doing a rollback to the point just before you started messing with the renaming of the project.

Of course, you'd also want to rename the project itself, in Solution Explorer. You can do this before the steps above, but in that case, make sure you check in that change before applying the steps above. You can also do it afterwards, but make sure you follow all the steps above first, and check in your changes before trying to rename the project name in Solution Explorer. I don't recommend trying to mix the above steps with a rename of the project name in Solution Explorer. It might work though, but I would recommand doing it in 2 separate changesets.

Thank you for introducing a procedure that works in `VS2012`! Note that you may avoid steps 5-10 (i.e. having to bring back the renamed folders within Source Control) if, instead, you close the solution and then rename the folders within `VS' Source Control Explorer` rather than `Windows Explorer`. — mjv, Jul 30 '13 at 18:39
These steps were close but changing the folder location with Windows Explorer(WE) before renaming in Source Control Explorer(SCE) caused the error: `Folder already exists`. So I had to rename the folder again in `WE` then change it in `SCE`, then copy the files into that folder, before it worked. So follow the comment from mjv above. I also didn't think about needing to change the actual project file names (not just in VS) which I did as an afterthought making me repeat some of these steps. — CaptainBli, Apr 28 '14 at 16:08
This approach with mjv's comment works in Perforce with the right-click, Rename/Move option as well. — santos, May 13 '14 at 10:07
You can avoid breaking project references, see http://stackoverflow.com/a/10853509/10245 — Tim Abell, May 23 '14 at 21:51
@TimAbell Have you tried that procedure in VS2012 and did it work for you? Before I originally wrote my answer, I tried that, but it didn't work for me, because the Project Path in the Properties window was always read only. And it didn't work editing the SLN file either. — René, May 24 '14 at 09:46
It worked in VS2013, haven't tried it in 2012. You could work-around the read-only thing by editing the file directly in notepad++ or something. — Tim Abell, May 24 '14 at 19:27
This is the only way it worked for me in VS2013 (Ultimate) (.sln structure is different than that of VS2008 or later, maybe its similar to VS2012) — hB0, Aug 04 '15 at 08:55

score 36 · Answer 5 · edited Dec 18 '19 at 16:15

36

Currently, no. Well, actually you can click the broken project node and in the properties pane look for the property 'Path', click the small browse icon, and select the new path.

Voilà :)

edited Dec 18 '19 at 16:15

Peter Mortensen

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answered Oct 17 '08 at 06:52

mortenbpost

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Using VS2015, the "Unloaded Project Properties" property name is "File path" and the value is neither editable nor browsable. – William Sep 06 '16 at 14:19

score 34 · Answer 6 · edited Jan 24 '20 at 16:58

34

The simpler solution is the following:

Right-click the project and rename it.
(optional) Open the project’s property settings and modify the assembly name (and optionally the default namespace) to use the new project name.
(optional) Select the namespace name in a source file, right click and select Refactor/Rename to globally rename the namespace to the new project name.
(optional) Open the AssemblyInfo.cs file and change the assembly name to match.
Save and close the solution.
Using Windows Explorer, rename the project folder to the new name.
Open the SLN file in a text editor and find the one reference to the project path and change it to use the new folder name.

There are four needed steps, but seven recommended. At the end of the day though the project is renamed completely. Technically, the folder name for the project doesn’t have to match the project itself, so even that step is optional, but it can be confusing if they don’t match. The same for the assembly and namespace names.

edited Jan 24 '20 at 16:58

Peter Mortensen

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answered Jan 26 '16 at 11:17

Md. Shafiqur Rahman

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Alternate step 7: Open the SLN file with VS, ignore warnings (click "OK"), select the project(s) in Solution Explorer, hit F4, update the file path. Optional Step 0: Right-click solution and rename it. – Martin Schneider Jun 15 '16 at 12:20
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Unbelievable how hard Microsoft make some things – Alex Feb 10 '17 at 15:38
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This worked for me on Visual Studio Community 2017. The accepted answer did not work (for me); the property that needed to be changed is read-only for me, and cannot be changed in the property dialog. – codingatty Jan 18 '18 at 04:28
For an addin programing, I used this guide, but I had to additionally rename .manifest and .addin files including all instances of the old name in their source text. – Dounchan Feb 06 '21 at 13:42

score 12 · Answer 7 · edited Dec 18 '19 at 20:04

In andersjanmyr's answer it's easier to rename the project first.

Rename the project.
Close the solution (save it).
Rename the folders outside Visual Studio.
Open the solution, ignoring the warnings.
Go through all unavailable projects and set the property 'File Path' to the new location of your project file, i.e. someproject.csproj.
Reload the project.

Also, after those steps are carried out, you might want to rename other references to your old project name.

In project properties, update the Assembly Name and Default Namespace.

This will update the following in the project file...

<RootNamespace>SomeProjectName</RootNamespace>
<AssemblyName>SomeProjectName</AssemblyName>

...and will get rid of the error "Namespace does not correspond to file location, should be: 'SomeProjectName'"

Rename your root namespace (if you have ReSharper right click the Namespace and go Refactor -> Rename).

Change all occurrences of your old project name in AssemblyInfo.cs.

Building upon this answer, you can manually edit the solution file so that the path to the project is your new path and avoid warnings upon opening the solution. You can probably click Project>Properties>AssemblyInfo to edit the assembly info from within VS and avoid editing AssemblyInfo.cs file. — H2ONaCl, Oct 21 '14 at 17:53

score 11 · Answer 8 · edited Jan 24 '20 at 17:37

For those using Visual Studio + Git and wanting to keep the file history (works renaming both projects and/or solutions):

Close Visual Studio
In the .gitignore file, duplicate all ignore paths of the project you want to rename with renamed versions of those paths.
Use the Git move command like this:
```
git mv <old_folder_name> <new_folder_name>
```
See documentation for additional options: https://git-scm.com/docs/git-mv
In your .sln file: Find the line defining your project and change the folder name in path. The line should look something like:
```
Project("{FAE04EC0-301F-11D3-BF4B-00C04F79EFBC}") = "<Project name>", "<path-to-project>\<project>.csproj"
```
Open Visual Studio, and right click on project → Rename
Afterwards, rename the namespaces.

I read that ReSharper has some options for this. But simple find/replace did the job for me.
Remove old .gitignore paths.

score 9 · Answer 9 · edited Jan 24 '20 at 17:23

9

For Visual Studio 2017 you can use my Visual Studio extension:

Download

It will rename the project in:

The project location folder
The solution file
References in other projects
The assembly name, information
The default namespace

edited Jan 24 '20 at 17:23

Peter Mortensen

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answered May 29 '17 at 06:15

Kuanysh

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awesome! tired of all the manual renames I have had to do in the past. Works well. Didn't find a string reference in another package however. Not sure if that is intentional. – frostymarvelous Jul 17 '17 at 12:23
thx. but I didn't understand the following: "string reference in another package". Can you explain it? – Kuanysh Jul 18 '17 at 16:44
So I have a test project and I so I have `[assembly: InternalsVisibleTo("MyTests")]`. When I renamed `MyTests`, it didn't rename that reference. Again, I don't think this falls under your purview and it's easy to solve manually. – frostymarvelous Jul 18 '17 at 16:46
You are right. The extension doesn't have such feature. – Kuanysh Jul 20 '17 at 14:28
Awesome! I just download your extension and it worked. However it would be nice if it lets you optionally fix namespaces too – taquion Sep 13 '17 at 20:13
Thx. Fixing namespaces was implemented for C# projects. You can check it by updating the extension – Kuanysh Sep 18 '17 at 14:38
This extension did not work for me (C++ project on VS 2017). Among other problems, it did not preserve Filters inside the Solution Explorer. For large projects, that would be very annoying. If you want to try it, be sure you're fully backed up first! – Lorien Brune Sep 30 '17 at 23:51
1

This extension assumes that the folder currently has the same name as the project (before renaming). If they differ, the renaming fail :( I also didn't get "Rename Namespaces" to work. Luckily, I only used it on quite small solutions. Otherwise, great! – savehansson Jan 19 '18 at 11:12
Nice work but didn't worked for me, though I closed all the files – Sracanis Mar 15 '18 at 12:43
@dESource please, create issue with exception stacktrace in https://github.com/kuanysh-nabiyev/RenameProjectVsExtension/issues – Kuanysh Mar 16 '18 at 09:19
Sorry, the link is broken! – Massimiliano Kraus May 21 '18 at 08:53
1

@MassimilianoKraus I make the extension private, because of last negative reviews without explanation on marketplace. sorry for that. I have updated the link – Kuanysh May 21 '18 at 09:07

score 8 · Answer 10 · edited Jan 24 '20 at 16:03

8

I just had to do this myself (using Visual Studio 2010). As some folks have answered, the simplest step seems to be:

Close the Visual Studio project.
Open the .sln file and rename the project directory prefix for each of the .csproj occurrences.
Save the .sln file
Rename the actual project folder directory on your hard drive to match your changes in the .sln file.
Open the .sln (in Visual Studio) and rebuild

edited Jan 24 '20 at 16:03

Peter Mortensen

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answered Feb 22 '11 at 17:33

John Im

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This really seems the simplest way to do it, although I prefer to do step 4 before step 2. – Christopher Hamkins Jul 16 '21 at 07:20

score 7 · Answer 11 · answered Jul 23 '20 at 17:41

Using Visual Studio 2019, I followed below steps to make the project name change successful:

Close the solution
Rename the project folder to match with new project name
Open solution file in notepad++ kind of editor and edit the FilePath with new project name folder
Open the solution and click No if it ask whether you want to open from source control
Right click the project which you want renaming and click Properties then change below: Change Assembly Name, Default Assembly namespace and Assembly information with new name
Open any of the file and move the file to new namespace which will be done by all files
If you have app.config kind of files then make sure to move them also in new namespace
Rebuild it which will work successfully

On Visual Studio 2019, I can't find Assembly Name, Default Assembly namespace and Assembly information (in properties of the project) at step 5). Furthemore, your answer keeps the old name of the proj file. — , Nov 12 '20 at 13:50

alejandrob · Answer 12 · 2020-04-22T19:19:34.363

A proven solution for Visual Studio extension for Data Tools for Business Intelligence (SSDT-BI 2013):

Move the Project folder to its new location (don't rename anything yet)
In Solution Explorer, rename the Project / Solution.
Close (and save) the newly-renamed project.
Rename the project's folder and .sln file.
Use a text editor and open the newly-renamed project solution file (.sln) (I used Notepad++)
In line number 6 you'll see: "Project {fdjfksdjk4387!...} = "OLDPROJECT", "OLDFOLDER\OLDPROJECT.rptproj". Rename everything with the new names used in step 4. (i.e. ... = "NEWPROJECT", "NEWFOLDER\NEWPROJECT.rptproj"... )
That's it!

It was tested 100% and worked flawlessly in my case.

NOTE: I can't confirm if it works under different project templates and other Visual Studio versions. As always, do backup everything beforehand.

score 5 · Answer 13 · edited Jan 24 '20 at 17:32

5

What worked for me in Visual Studio 2017:

Close solution in Visual Studio
Rename the directories of projects in the solution.
- (push change in source control - Git in my case)
Edit the .sln file in a text editor (outside Visual Studio 2017) changing the name of the directory.
Reopen the solution in Visual Studio

It said something like "re-adding project". I rebuilt everything and everything was good to go.

edited Jan 24 '20 at 17:32

Peter Mortensen

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answered Jun 29 '18 at 15:40

Charles Plager

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Additionally you may need to remove the old project from the dependencies of other projects and re-add the newly renamed project as a new dependency (Right click on the old project >> Remove, then right click on `Dependencies` >> `Add reference` >> Select your new project) – maxshuty Feb 04 '20 at 15:10

KushalSeth · Answer 14 · 2022-09-13T07:19:54.640

I am recently working on .Net 6 project with VS2022. and I need to rename my templatemicroservice to my UserMicroservice.

.Net 6 changes most of the things for you. like AssemblyNames and NameSpaces. Also, it changes the ProjectName references in .sln automatically. So, this answer will really help you to rename your service with no hurdles.

So, Steps I followed:

Open the solution in Visual Studio and did these steps:

I renamed my solution by right clicking on it. like, TemplateServiceSolution to UserServiceSolution.
Renamed all the Projects in solution by right clicking on them. like, TemplateService to UserService.
In a specific project, I searched the namespaces like: namespace TemplateService and replaced all by namespace UserService. Do this step in each project. Also relplace using TemplateService to using UserService.
Open your launchsettings.json, and rename anything related to old service, as I had few things in profiles of launchsettings.json.
Just to be sure, please check your startup and program.cs files as well, I didn't have any changes in them.

Closed the solution from Visual Studio and did these steps:

Closed the solution, and opened the File Explorer. Renamed all my project folders from TemplateService to UserService.
Open the .sln in notepad/notepad++, and must change the Folder Structure name. like for a particular project, I should give the correct .csproj paths. as shown in image, I need to rename TemplateService to UserService.

Open the solution in Visual Studio. Most of your Dependencies will be loaded as soon as you Load your solution in Visual Studio Code. and you are ready.

score 4 · Answer 15 · edited Jan 24 '20 at 12:15

See item 3 in the linked article.

Close the solution and the IDE.
In Windows Explorer: Change the directory name to the new name.
In Windows Explorer: Open the .sln file with a text editor.
Change the directory name to the new name and save.
Restart the IDE and open the solution from menu File → Recent Files menu if it doesn't start automatically.
Click on the project folder in Solution Explorer and check the path property in the properties at the bottom. It will now be referencing to the new project folder.

It worked for me.

score 4 · Answer 16 · edited Jan 24 '20 at 17:40

4

I've had to do this lots of times. It's really useful to be able to repurpose an existing project, but be able to rename text in namespaces, files, and folders (including file / directory names).

Using a recursive find and replace starting at the root folder means the rename doesn't break links to projects in the solution files and project references.

To this end, I have created a project to do just this. The application also makes an effort to ignore version control folders such as .git, .svn and the .vs settings file. More information is in the README.

https://github.com/garethrbrown/vs-project-rename

Example

edited Jan 24 '20 at 17:40

Peter Mortensen

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answered Feb 27 '19 at 17:15

gbro3n

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Nice work! Your project is actually a renaming tool. I think one thing really is missing: a match whole word option. – Eliahu Aaron Dec 05 '19 at 13:21

Modern Ronin · Answer 17 · 2020-09-16T10:43:15.990

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I just solved this problem for myself writing a global dotnet tool (that also takes into account git+history).

Install via dotnet tool install -g ModernRonin.ProjectRenamer, use with renameproject <oldName> <newName>.

Documentation/Tinkering/PRs at

https://github.com/ModernRonin/ProjectRenamer

edited Sep 16 '20 at 10:43

answered Sep 04 '20 at 12:33

Modern Ronin

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meanwhile the tool also deals with moving projects to different directories etc. – Modern Ronin Dec 16 '20 at 13:32
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This tool worked perfectly for my project. Thank you for this! – Ben Palmer Jan 25 '21 at 05:33
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Glad it helped :-) – Modern Ronin Feb 11 '21 at 11:12

score 3 · Answer 18 · edited Dec 18 '19 at 19:57

Note: This fix is for Visual Studio 2008, but it should work here.

Using Windows Explorer, rename both the solution folders (the parent folder and the child folder) to the new solution name.
Delete the .sln file located in the parent folder.
In Visual Studio, select menu File ► Open Project.
Drill into the new folder you just renamed and open the .csproj file (located in the child folder).
Right-click the project name and rename it to what you want. (It should be the same name as the folder in step 1.)
Select menu File ► Close Solution. A dialog will ask if you want to save changes to the .sln file. Click Yes.
In the Save File As dialog, point to the newly renamed parent folder and click Save. (Note: Make sure the .sln file has the same name as the folder. It is not required, but it maintains consistency.)

Done.

Thank you for the very clear explanation. I followed your advice and successfully renamed the project but it's startup project folder disappeared. I right clicked the Solution in Solution Explorer > Add > Existing Item. — Ray Chakrit, Mar 14 '23 at 16:49

score 3 · Answer 19 · answered Mar 04 '21 at 23:24

This worked well for me in Visual Studio 2019.

Rename the solution, projects in Visual Studio by simply single clicking on the file names as normal.
Rename the namespaces in Visual Studio.
Rename the desired elements on the main project page (publish location, application, default namespace, whatever). As noted correctly, this does nothing for the folders, but it does rename the project files and keeps everything tied together in Visual Studio.
Close Visual Studio.
Rename the folders.
Open Visual Studio and reply 'no' to getting projects from Source Control.
Delete the unloaded project references.
Add each project back in using Add existing project from Solution. This tied everything together and the project built for me.

Please comment on and correct anything above that does not work.

score 3 · Answer 20 · answered Jul 04 '21 at 05:05

This is how I renamed my existing project in VS19.

Close the visual studio project
Rename and open the each project folder name on your drive
Rename each .csproj
Open .sln file and rename the project directory prefix for each of the .csproj occurrences.
Open the .sln file in visual studio and rebuild
Update prevoius nameSpace refrence with new one by going through each file or using ReplaceAll

score 2 · Answer 21 · edited Jan 24 '20 at 17:27

I often had the same problem of renaming a project in Visual Studio and editing the folder name, project name, and .sln file in order to accomplish that. I just wrote a VBScript script that accomplishes all that. You have to be careful with the strings you choose for replacing.

You just have to put the .vbs file in the same directory as the .sln file of the solution.

' Script parameters'
Solution = "Rename_Visual_Studio_Project" '.sln'
Project = "Rename_Visual_Studio_Project" '.csproj'
NewProject = "SUCCESS"

Const ForReading = 1
Const ForWriting = 2

Set objFso = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
scriptDirr = objFso.GetParentFolderName(wscript.ScriptFullName)

' Rename the all project references in the .sln file'
Set objFile = objFso.OpenTextFile(scriptDirr + "\" + Solution + ".sln", ForReading)
fileText = objFile.ReadAll
newFileText = Replace(fileText, Project, NewProject)
Set objFile = objFSO.OpenTextFile(scriptDirr + "\" + Solution + ".sln", ForWriting)
objFile.WriteLine(newFileText)
objFile.Close

' Rename the .csproj file'
objFso.MoveFile scriptDirr + "\" + Project + "\" + Project + ".csproj", scriptDirr + "\" + Project + "\" + NewProject + ".csproj"

' Rename the folder of the .csproj file'
objFso.MoveFolder scriptDirr + "\" + Project, scriptDirr + "\" + NewProject

score 2 · Answer 22 · edited Jan 24 '20 at 17:29

2

Rename the project in the solution and the project folder
Delete the project from the solution
Add the existing project to the solution (your renamed project)

It works for me. TFS will also track the new project.

edited Jan 24 '20 at 17:29

Peter Mortensen

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answered Jun 13 '18 at 13:49

Vlad

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score 2 · Answer 23 · edited Sep 18 '22 at 06:50

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You cannot rename a folder if your project is currently running

Stop your application Shift+F5
Rename your folder from the Solution Explorer (right-click > rename or F2)

edited Sep 18 '22 at 06:50

Robb Hoff

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answered Feb 26 '21 at 23:52

Elias Prado

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score 2 · Answer 24 · edited Jan 24 '20 at 16:06

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I have written a small tool that automates all these steps. It also supports Subversion for now.

Information about current releases can be found at Visual Studio Project Renamer Infos.

The latest releases can now be downloaded from the Visual Studio Project Renamer Download Page.

Feedback is much appreciated.

edited Jan 24 '20 at 16:06

Peter Mortensen

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answered Aug 21 '11 at 15:27

Razer

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score 1 · Answer 25 · edited Jan 24 '20 at 16:07

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When using TFS, step 2 is actually to rename the folder in source control and then get the latest before reopening the solution.

edited Jan 24 '20 at 16:07

Peter Mortensen

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answered Oct 12 '12 at 13:11

Amy Patterson

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score 1 · Answer 26 · edited Jan 24 '20 at 16:28

There's a simpler approach which was tested in Visual Studio 2013 Update 1 and applicable for TFS-connected projects:

Open Visual Studio, but let the solution be closed.
Open Source Explorer and rename the desired folder (the solution will be closed for you if you didn't already close it first).
Right-click on the solution (from Source Explorer also) and select check-in.
Open the solution. You'll be told that there're new projects added. Accept to get the changes.
Remove the project from the solution and add it again, and then check-in.
Check that the internal references are OK.

score 1 · Answer 27 · edited Jan 24 '20 at 16:30

1

We recently uploaded a beta of a free Visual Studio extension which does this stuff for you.

Have a look at Visual Studio Gallery: Gallery Download

edited Jan 24 '20 at 16:30

Peter Mortensen

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answered Feb 20 '15 at 22:09

user3652868

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score 1 · Answer 28 · edited Jan 24 '20 at 16:33

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Well, I did it my way

Close Visual Studio 2012
Rename your subdirectory to the preferred name under .sln
Delete the *.suo file
Open the solution again, and fix any properties of Project(s) loaded to meet the new subdirectory name

edited Jan 24 '20 at 16:33

Peter Mortensen

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answered Apr 09 '15 at 09:12

ageroh

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score 1 · Answer 29 · edited Jan 24 '20 at 16:45

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Rename the project outside Visual Studio.
Edit your_project_name.sln with a text editor, and rename the path to the new path.

edited Jan 24 '20 at 16:45

Peter Mortensen

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answered Aug 20 '15 at 15:52

user1062770

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That seems similar to the current solution and a little more difficult. – bowlturner Aug 20 '15 at 15:57

score 1 · Answer 30 · edited Jan 24 '20 at 17:38

1

Open .sln in a text editor, and in the following line change <FolderName> to your new folder name Project("{FAE04EC0-301F-11D3-BF4B-00C04F79EFBC}") = "Ricky", "\.csproj", "{021CC6B0-8CFB-4194-A103-C19AF869D965}"

edited Jan 24 '20 at 17:38

Peter Mortensen

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answered Jan 26 '19 at 23:48

Hasala Senevirathne

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score 1 · Answer 31 · answered Feb 04 '20 at 18:13

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Go to the .sln file, right click, open with Notepad++ (or any editor; Notepad++ is the fastest), find the path, change it.

answered Feb 04 '20 at 18:13

Ziad

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This is not enough for a C++ project with Visual Studio 2019, it induces failure during the loading of the project. – Nov 12 '20 at 13:17

score 0 · Answer 32 · edited Jan 24 '20 at 16:19

0

After changing the folder name, open the .sln file in Notepad and change the path to new path.

edited Jan 24 '20 at 16:19

Peter Mortensen

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answered Mar 18 '13 at 20:38

I Stand With Russia

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score 0 · Answer 33 · edited Jan 24 '20 at 16:21

Similar issues arise when a new project has to be created, and you want a different project folder name than the project name.

When you create a new project, it gets stored at

./path/to/pro/ject/YourProject/YourProject.**proj

Let's assume you wanted to have it directly in the ject folder:

./path/to/pro/ject/YourProject.**proj

My workaround to accomplish this is to create the project with the last part of the path as its name, so that it doesn't create an additional directory:

./path/to/pro/ject/ject.**proj

When you now rename the project from within Visual Studio, you achieve the goal without having to leave Visual Studio:

./path/to/pro/ject/YourProject.**proj

The downside of this approach is that you have to adjust the default namespace and the name of the Output binary as well, and that you have to update namespaces in all files that are included within the project template.

score 0 · Answer 34 · edited Jan 24 '20 at 16:26

0

I use Visual Studio 2013 and TFS 2013.

I did it like this:

Open Visual Studio, without opening the solution itself, and use Source Control Explorer to find and rename folders for projects
Double-click the solution file in Source Control Explorer to open a solution.
You get a question: "Projects have recently been added to this solution. Do you want to get them from source control?", and you choose Yes.
Now the folder and project structure are there, but now files, so now you get the latest version from source control
Try to build and commit changes.

edited Jan 24 '20 at 16:26

Peter Mortensen

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answered Apr 25 '14 at 15:49

Muris

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so no windows explorer things. In the end, you can delete all local files and get whole (clean) project from source control. – Muris Apr 25 '14 at 15:50
I just found out that it is also possible, due to folder rearranging, that solution file creates empty folder where some project was stored. Then, open solution file in notepad and decrees number of property SccNumberOfProjects by the number of empty directories created, and delete corresponding SccProjectUniqueName#, SccProjectName#, SccLocalPath# and other properties with same #. – Muris Apr 29 '14 at 09:21

score 0 · Answer 35 · edited Jan 24 '20 at 16:41

0

The simplest way is to go to the property of the window, change the name of the default namespaces, and then the rename is done.

edited Jan 24 '20 at 16:41

Peter Mortensen

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answered Jul 22 '15 at 12:34

hjbjh

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What is the window you speak of? Do you mean the properties window of the project? – Peter Mortensen Jan 24 '20 at 16:42

score 0 · Answer 36 · edited Jan 24 '20 at 17:20

I did the following:

Rename the project from within Visual Studio 2013 (optional/not needed).
Export the project as a template.
Close the solution.
Reopen the solution
Create a project from the saved template and use the name you like.
Delete from the solution explorer the previous project.

At this point I tried to compile the new solution, and to do so, I had to manually copy some resources and headers to the new project folder from the old project folder. Do this until it compiles without errors. Now this new project saved the ".exe" file to the previous folder.*

So ->

Go to Windows Explorer and manually copy the solution file from the old project folder to the new project folder.
Close the solution, and open the solution from within the new project.
Changed the configuration back to (x64) if needed.
Delete the folder of the project with the old name from the folder of the solution.

score 0 · Answer 37 · edited Jan 24 '20 at 17:37

0

Or simply, copy all the codes, open a new project with the desired name, and paste the code. Run debug and then delete the previous project. Done!

It worked for me!

edited Jan 24 '20 at 17:37

Peter Mortensen

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answered Sep 23 '18 at 03:27

usr · Answer 38 · 2022-01-08T06:30:01.473

The other answers provide lots of details on how to do it. Here's a shortcut, though, that can save you some work:

Rename the project folder
Rename the .csproj file
Mass replace the project name in all files in the solution (I use GrepWin, it has a convenient GUI with preview)

That way you don't have to mess around tediously with the Visual Studio GUI. You can also fix the namespace that way. You can use source control to validate the changes (e.g. open TortoiseGit Commit and look at the changes).

score 0 · Answer 39 · answered Feb 17 '22 at 12:07

The simplest way:

Create a template from the current project
Project -> Export Template... -> Project Template -> Finish
Create a new project using the template with the name you want it to have
File -> New Project -> Find the template -> Give it the name you want -> Add to existing solution or just as new

That's it, you're done, you can now delete the other project if you want, but make sure the new one works as expected first. The template should retain all dependencies and project settings.

score 0 · Answer 40 · answered Apr 06 '22 at 09:17

A bit late to the party but in VS2022 your suggested way was still the easiest for me (I do not like editing .sln files directly).

That is:

Remove the project from the solution.
Rename the folder outside
Re-add the project to the solution.

For example if you want to rename Project 'HelloWorld' to 'HelloStackOverflow'.

In Visual Studio: Rename Project from 'HelloWorld' to 'HelloStackOverflow'
In Visual Studio: Remove Project 'HelloStackOverflow'
In the File System: Navigate to folder: Rename 'HelloWorld' to 'HelloStackOverflow'
In Visual Studio: Add existing Project 'HelloStackOverflow' in VS2022
In Visual Studio: If there are dependencies to this project, you have to remove them and add them to the new project.

This will not change namespaces or configuration files. After the steps you've mentioned, I would recommend to execute the command `grep -inr "HelloWorld" /path/to/project/**/*`. Then you can see where the old name still exists and change it manually. — Kluddizz, Apr 15 '22 at 16:00

score 0 · Answer 41 · answered Dec 10 '22 at 04:25

0

First, close the localhost and then right-click on the folder. You will get rename option. (Visual Studio 2022). This worked for me. If you don't get rename option then go through other solutions.

answered Dec 10 '22 at 04:25

Mahmuda

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gabegi · Answer 42 · 2023-06-08T13:02:51.163

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What worked for me:

Rename the folder name in project references in VS e.g.: <ProjectReference Include="..\FolderName\ProjectName.csproj" />)
In file explorer, go to the folder and change its name
Go to the SNL file (e.g. in VSC) and rename the folder name e.g.:

Project("{}") = "FolderName", "FolderName\ProjectName", "{}" EndProject)

edited Jun 08 '23 at 13:02

answered Jun 08 '23 at 12:28

gabegi

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score -2 · Answer 43 · edited Jan 24 '20 at 17:28

-2

Right click project → Properties, and set (name) to the required name.

edited Jan 24 '20 at 17:28

Peter Mortensen

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answered Mar 19 '18 at 04:44

Bilal Ahsan

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How can I rename a project folder from within Visual Studio?

43 Answers43

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