Powershell Get the most recent file in Directory

Today in this article, we shall see l simple and easy technique of Powershell Get the Latest file in Directory using basic and other filter criteria.

We shall use PowerShell scripts to search the files as per multiple search criteria.

Today in this article, we will cover below aspects,

We shall see how to get all files from the directory or most recent files using multiple filters like adding multiple files Example: .txt or .jpg or .csv etc.

Let’s consider the below folder, for example, I have a series of nested folders with different files which include .xlsx or .png, etc.

Getting Files from a Given Folder Directory using PowerShell

Get all files from a directory

Get all files from a directory or get all files in a loop for loop in PowerShell.

Command

Get-ChildItem

Example

PS C:\Test> Get-ChildItem

Get-ChildItem method returns the names of files or folders in the specified directory i.e C:\Test

You can specify the path using the below commands as well,

PS C:\Test> Get-ChildItem C:\\Test\Test1

Getting Files from a given Directory using file extension filter

Get all files from a directory,

Command

Get-ChildItem -Attributes !Directory *.* | Sort-Object -Descending -Property LastWriteTime

Get all files from a directory with .txt or .xlsx extension only

Command

Get-ChildItem -Attributes !Directory *.txt| Sort-Object -Descending -Property LastWriteTime

Get all files from a directory with .jpeg extension only,

Get-ChildItem -Attributes !Directory *.jpeg | Sort-Object -Descending -Property LastWriteTime

Using Parameter to store the list of Names

The above commands give us a list of all files with the file extension “.xlsx”. We are able to print the file name using $latestfile.Name

Similar way we can easily print different attributes of file names like file name or Last Modified Time or Creation time etc.

PS C:\Test> $latestfile = Get-ChildItem -Attributes !Directory *.png | Sort-Object -Descending -Property LastWriteTime | select -First 1
 PS C:\Test> $latestfile.Name
 TheCodeBuzz.png
 PS C:\Test> $latestfile.CreationTime
 Saturday, April 24, 2021 5:46:49 PM
 PS C:\Test> $latestfile.FullName

Getting a single latest from a given Directory using file extension filter

One can use a combination of properties like LastWriteTime and Select -First 1 to get the latest file in the given directory.

Get a single latest from a given Directory without file filter

Example:

PS C:\Test> $latestfile = Get-ChildItem -Attributes !Directory . | Sort-Object -Descending -Property LastWriteTime | select -First 1

PS C:\Test> $latestfile.Name
Book1.xlsx

PowerShell- Get the most recent file in Directory with a filter

Get the most recent file in the Directory with a filter,

PS C:\Test> $latestfile = Get-ChildItem -Attributes !Directory *.png | Sort-Object -Descending -Property LastWriteTime | select -First 1


PS C:\Test> $latestfile.Name
TheCodeBuzz.png

PowerShell – Get all files from a given Directory with a filter

If you need to get all the files from the given directory, please use the below logic,

PS C:\Test> $latestfile = Get-ChildItem -Attributes !Directory *.png | Sort-Object -Descending 

References:

• Resolving PowerShell execution of scripts is disabled on this system

That’s all! Happy coding!

Does this help you fix your issue?

Do you have any better solutions or suggestions? Please sound off your comments below.

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