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I am trying to append date and time to a folder using powershell. Let's say the folder name is always same, so I can store it in a variable in my power shell script. Ex: $myfolder = "default_folder"

I use get-date and get-time to find current date/time and store it in $file_date and $file_time

Using Rename-Item doesn't seem to work.

Rename-Item "$myfolder" "$myfolder"_"$file_date"_"$file_time"

I get the following error:

Rename-Item : A positional parameter cannot be found that accepts argument '_20210722_1157'.
At line:1 char:1
+ Rename-Item "$myfolder" "$myfolder"_"$file_date"_"$file_time"
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    + CategoryInfo          : InvalidArgument: (:) [Rename-Item], ParameterBindingException
    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : PositionalParameterNotFound,Microsoft.PowerShell.Com
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1 Answer 1

Reset to default
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The way you concatenated the strings resulted in a space after default_folder:

❯ $myfolder = "default_folder"
❯ $file_date = "20210722"
❯ $file_time = "1157"
❯ write-host "$myfolder"_"$file_date"_"$file_time"
default_folder _20210722_1157

Try this for your rename argument instead ${myfolder}_${file_date}_${file_time}

❯ write-host ${myfolder}_${file_date}_${file_time}
default_folder_20210722_1157

Rename-Item -Path ${myfolder} -NewName ${myfolder}_${file_date}_${file_time}

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  • woohoo! That worked like a charm. Thanks, Josh.
    – hithesh
    Jul 23, 2021 at 3:13
  • @hithesh no problem! Could you mark my answer as correct? I also see you had a follow up question that you might have accidentally put in as an edit to the answer, you can just add it as a comment here.
    – Josh Zhang ♦
    Jul 23, 2021 at 13:15
  • Related question: While doing this, I also tried to use Select-Object to get date and time of folder creation. When I use select-object, instead of 1 time stamp, I get a bunch like below. Why do I get so many and how do I limit to 1? Get-ChildItem "$myfolder" | Select-Object -ExpandProperty CreationTime | Get-Date -f "yyyyMMdd_hhmm" 20210722_1104 20210722_1104 20210722_1104 20210722_1104 20210722_1104 20210722_1104 20210722_1104 20210722_1104 20210722_1104 20210722_1104
    – hithesh
    Jul 23, 2021 at 22:05
  • @hithesh you are getting multiple timestamps because you used Get-ChildItem which is including all the subfolders instead of Get-Item which would only return the folder or file you chose.
    – Josh Zhang ♦
    Jul 24, 2021 at 12:40

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