Check if File Exists with Powershell

It’s very easy to check if a file exists with Powershell and take an action if so, here are some examples:

Check if a file exists

$fileToCheck = "C:\tmp\test.txt"
if (Test-Path $fileToCheck -PathType leaf)
{
    #do some stuff
}

Delete file if it exists

$fileToCheck = "C:\tmp\test.txt"
if (Test-Path $fileToCheck -PathType leaf)
{
    Remove-Item $fileToCheck
}

An even shorter method….

$fileToCheck = "c:\tmp\test.txt"
Remove-Item $fileToCheck -ErrorAction Ignore

Check if a file exists and get the content

$fileToCheck = "C:\tmp\test.txt"
if (Test-Path $fileToCheck -PathType leaf) {Get-Content $fileToCheck}

Check if a file exists and print a message if it does or does not exist

$fileToCheck = "C:\tmp\test.txt"
if (Test-Path $fileToCheck -PathType leaf) 
{"File does Exist"}
else
{"File does not exist"}

Check if a file exists and show the properties of the file

$fileToCheck = "C:\tmp\test.txt"
if (Test-Path $fileToCheck -PathType leaf)
{
    $file = Get-Item $fileToCheck
    $file.FullName
    $file.LastAccessTime
    $file.Length
    $file.Extension
    #etc...
}

Check if a file exists and move it to a new location

$fileToCheck = "C:\tmp\test.txt"
$newPath = "c:\tmp\newFolder"
if (Test-Path $fileToCheck -PathType leaf) 
{
    Move-Item -Path $fileToCheck -Destination $newPath
    "$fileToCheck moved to $newPath"
}

It’s obvious from the above examples that Test-Path simply returns a Boolean (i.e. True or False) and executing it on its own will produce exactly that:

The PathType parameter is not strictly required, but it is useful if you want to be sure the check you are performing is actually a file, not a directory.

You can check for a directory by setting PathType to “container”