Recursive file search using PowerShell

Question

I am searching for a file in all the folders.

Copyforbuild.bat is available in many places, and I would like to search recursively.

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Answer 1

I use this to find files and then have PowerShell display the entire path of the results:

dir -Path C:\FolderName -Filter FileName.fileExtension -Recurse | %{$_.FullName}

You can always use the wildcard * in the FolderName and/or FileName.fileExtension. For example:

dir -Path C:\Folder* -Filter File*.file* -Recurse | %{$_.FullName}

The above example will search any folder in the C:\ drive beginning with the word Folder. So if you have a folder named FolderFoo and FolderBar PowerShell will show results from both of those folders.

The same goes for the file name and file extension. If you want to search for a file with a certain extension, but don't know the name of the file, you can use:

dir -Path C:\FolderName -Filter *.fileExtension -Recurse | %{$_.FullName}

Or vice versa:

dir -Path C:\FolderName -Filter FileName.* -Recurse | %{$_.FullName}

Answer 2

When searching folders where you might get an error based on security (e.g. C:\Users), use the following command:

Get-ChildItem -Path V:\Myfolder -Filter CopyForbuild.bat -Recurse -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue -Force