I have googled for the below question, but could not find any answer. Can someone help me on this; What is the command to create a new file through Windows Powershell?
10 Answers
I'm guessing you're trying to create a text file?
New-Item c:\scripts\new_file.txt -type file
Where "C:\scripts\new_file.txt" is the fully qualified path including the file name and extension.
Taken from TechNet article
3 Comments
mklement0
++, but note that you're not creating a text file, you're creating a zero-byte (empty file) - which has no inherent type.
Benyamin Limanto
This should be the answer. Get, Start, New, and etc is new era of cmdlet that's great for sysadmin. Just left old command behind.
JobaDiniz
how to create the file and every directory within the path?
To create file using echo
echo some-text > filename.txt
Example:
C:\>echo This is a sample text file > sample.txt
C:\>type sample.txt
This is a sample text file
C:\>
To create file using fsutil
fsutil file createnew filename number_of_bytes
Example:
fsutil file createnew sample2.txt 2000
File C:\sample2.txt is created
C:\data>dir
01/23/2016 09:34 PM 2,000 sample2.txt
C:\data>
Limitations
Fsutil can be used only by administrators. For non-admin users it throws up below error.
c:\>fsutil file /?
The FSUTIL utility requires that you have administrative privileges. c:>
Hope this helps!
1 Comment
mklement0
Please don't suggest the use of
echo - an alias for the rarely needed Write-Output cmdlet - because it is a bad habit to promote in the PowerShell world. Newcomers need to be guided towards PowerShell's implicit output model: 'some-text' > filename.txt. If your code is meant to be cmd.exe code (it also works as that), please note the the question is tagged powershell.ni filename.txt
Replace filename.txt with your file .
I found this the simplest answer to the question, and refer to other answers for more details.
3 Comments
Dillon
Quick thing to point out here is that
ni is a default alias for the New-Item command. Alias information for a specific command can be view via the gal -definition command, e.g. gal -definition New-Item.
Des
I really liked this answer. Also ni (New-Item) creates the file with UTF-8 encoding and echo creates it with ucs-2 le bom(UTF-16) encoding. Unless you change the encoding, the files created with echo will be twice the size.
mikey
This is easiest. Note that when running this, my powershell asked for type, I put in
filestreet smart (quick, dirty but works): (might change the file and add an invisible character which might cause the compiler to fail)
$null > file.txt
$null > file.html
Textbook method:
New-Item -path <path to the destination file> -type file
example:
New-Item -path "c:\" -type file -name "somefile.txt"
OR
ni file.xt -type file
absence of -path parameter means it creates it in the current working directory
1 Comment
Ben Sewards
So many great options, especially short-hand cmd
ni with working directoryHere is another way to create a blank text file in Powershell which allows you to specify the encoding.
First example
For a blank text file:
Out-File C:\filename.txt -encoding ascii
Without -encoding ascii, Powershell defaults to Unicode. You must specify ascii if you want it to be readable or editable by another source.
Overwriting the file with new text:
"Some Text on first line" | Out-File C:\filename1.txt -encoding ascii
This replaces whatever text is in filename.txt with Some Text on first line.
Appending text to the current file contents:
"Some More Text after the old text" | Out-File C:\filename1.txt -encoding ascii -Append
Specifying -Append leaves the current contents of filename.txt alone and adds Some More Text after the old text to the end of the file, leaving the current content intact.
Comments
As many have already pointed out, you can create files with the New-File command.
This command has a default alias set to ni but if you're used to unix commands you can create your own custom command easily.
Create a touch command to act as New-File like this:
Set-Alias -Name touch -Value New-Item
This new alias will allow you to create new files like so:
touch filename.txt
This would make these 3 commands equivalent:
New-Item filename.txt
ni filename.txt
touch filename.txt
Keep in mind that for this to be persistent, you should add the alias to your powershell profile. To get it's location simply run $profile on ps. If you want to edit it directly, run code $profile (for VSCode), vim $profile (for vim) or whatever.
Comments
Use the New-item cmdlet and your new file name.
New-item <filename>
Example:
New-item My_newFile.txt
Comments
# encodings:
New-Item file.js -ItemType File -Value "some content" # UTF-8
"some content" | Out-File main.js -Encoding utf8 # UTF-8-BOM
echo "some content" > file.js # UCS-2 LE BOM
Comments
The easiest way in any command line:
"" > path/to/file/filename.extension
fileare you trying to create? Or in other words what file extension? Like .txt .docx etc...