PowerShell New-Item: Create Files, Folders and Empty Files

To create a file or folder in PowerShell, use New-Item with -ItemType File or -ItemType Directory. It returns the new item, so you can use it right away:

$file   = New-Item -Path C:\psfaqs\NewItem\notes.txt -ItemType File
$folder = New-Item -Path C:\psfaqs\NewItem\Archive -ItemType Directory

"Created file:   $($file.FullName) ($($file.Length) bytes)"
"Created folder: $($folder.FullName)"

Output:

Created file:   C:\psfaqs\NewItem\notes.txt (0 bytes)
Created folder: C:\psfaqs\NewItem\Archive

A new file is empty, 0 bytes, which makes New-Item the simplest way to create an empty file. I ran every example in PowerShell 7.6 and Windows PowerShell 5.1 and note where they differ.

Create a file with content

Add -Value to write text into the new file:

New-Item -Path C:\psfaqs\NewItem\readme.txt -ItemType File -Value 'Owner: IT Operations, Dallas' | Out-Null
Get-Content -Path C:\psfaqs\NewItem\readme.txt

Output:

Owner: IT Operations, Dallas

-Value doesn’t add a line break at the end. Use Add-Content when you’ll keep adding lines.

When the file already exists

New-Item refuses to overwrite a file. -Force makes it go ahead, and that empties the existing file:

$file = 'C:\psfaqs\NewItem\budget.txt'
"Before: $((Get-Item -Path $file).Length) bytes"

try { New-Item -Path $file -ItemType File -ErrorAction Stop | Out-Null }
catch { "Without -Force: $($_.Exception.Message)" }

New-Item -Path $file -ItemType File -Force | Out-Null
"After -Force: $((Get-Item -Path $file).Length) bytes"

Output:

Before: 20 bytes
Without -Force: The file 'C:\psfaqs\NewItem\budget.txt' already exists.
After -Force: 0 bytes

That’s easy to miss, because -Force sounds like “create if needed”. To create a file only when it’s missing, test first:

$file = 'C:\psfaqs\NewItem\budget.txt'

if (-not (Test-Path -Path $file)) { New-Item -Path $file -ItemType File | Out-Null }
"budget.txt still holds: $(Get-Content -Path $file)"

Output:

budget.txt still holds: Q3 budget: $48,000

-Force on a folder is safe

For directories, -Force just returns the existing folder and leaves its contents alone:

New-Item -Path C:\psfaqs\NewItem\Reports -ItemType Directory -Force | Out-Null
"Files still in Reports: $((Get-ChildItem -Path C:\psfaqs\NewItem\Reports).Name)"

Output:

Files still in Reports: q3.csv

So New-Item -ItemType Directory -Force is a safe “make sure this folder exists” line at the top of a script.

Create nested folders and files in missing folders

New-Item creates any missing parent folders for a directory. For a file, it fails unless you add -Force:

New-Item -Path C:\psfaqs\NewItem\2026\Q3\Payroll -ItemType Directory | Out-Null
"Nested folders created: $(Test-Path -Path C:\psfaqs\NewItem\2026\Q3\Payroll)"

try { New-Item -Path C:\psfaqs\NewItem\2027\Q1\plan.txt -ItemType File -ErrorAction Stop | Out-Null }
catch { "File without -Force: $($_.Exception.Message)" }

New-Item -Path C:\psfaqs\NewItem\2027\Q1\plan.txt -ItemType File -Force | Out-Null
"File with -Force: $(Test-Path -Path C:\psfaqs\NewItem\2027\Q1\plan.txt)"

Output:

Nested folders created: True
File without -Force: Could not find a part of the path 'C:\psfaqs\NewItem\2027\Q1\plan.txt'.
File with -Force: True

Here -Force is safe, because the file doesn’t exist yet. It creates 2027 and Q1 first, then the file.

Create several files at once

-Path accepts a list. To build names from data, pipe the values to ForEach-Object and use -Name:

Set-Location -Path C:\psfaqs\NewItem
New-Item -Path 'january.csv', 'february.csv', 'march.csv' -ItemType File | Out-Null

'Austin', 'Denver', 'Miami' | ForEach-Object { New-Item -Name "$_-sales.csv" -ItemType File } | Out-Null
(Get-ChildItem -Path . -File).Name -join ', '

Output:

Austin-sales.csv, Denver-sales.csv, february.csv, january.csv, march.csv, Miami-sales.csv

-Name creates the item in the current location, which the next section is about.

Create a file in the current directory

Use a relative path like .\todo.txt or -Name, and New-Item uses your current PowerShell location. .NET methods don’t:

Set-Location -Path C:\psfaqs\NewItem
New-Item -Name 'todo.txt' -ItemType File | Out-Null
"New-Item wrote to:      $((Resolve-Path -Path .\todo.txt).Path)"

[System.IO.File]::WriteAllText('dotnet.txt', 'x')
"PowerShell location:    $PWD"
".NET current directory: $([Environment]::CurrentDirectory)"
"dotnet.txt is here:     $(Test-Path -Path .\dotnet.txt)"

Output:

New-Item wrote to:      C:\psfaqs\NewItem\todo.txt
PowerShell location:    C:\psfaqs\NewItem
.NET current directory: C:\psfaqs
dotnet.txt is here:     False

Set-Location doesn’t change .NET’s current directory, so pass .NET methods a full path, like Join-Path $PWD 'file.txt'. Microsoft explains locations in Managing the current location.

Other ways to create an empty file

Several one-liners create files, but not all of them create empty ones in Windows PowerShell 5.1:

Set-Location -Path C:\psfaqs\NewItem

New-Item -Path new-item.txt -ItemType File | Out-Null
Set-Content -Path set-content.txt -Value $null
$null > redirect.txt
Out-File -FilePath out-file.txt -InputObject $null

Get-ChildItem -Path *.txt | ForEach-Object { '{0,-16} {1} bytes' -f $_.Name, $_.Length }

Output in PowerShell 7:

new-item.txt     0 bytes
out-file.txt     0 bytes
redirect.txt     0 bytes
set-content.txt  0 bytes

Output in Windows PowerShell 5.1:

new-item.txt     0 bytes
out-file.txt     2 bytes
redirect.txt     2 bytes
set-content.txt  0 bytes

In 5.1, > and Out-File write UTF-16 and start the file with a 2-byte byte order mark. New-Item and Set-Content create a truly empty file in both versions.

A touch command for PowerShell

Linux’s touch creates a file or updates its timestamp. This function does the same without emptying existing files:

function Update-FileTime {
    param([Parameter(Mandatory)] [string]$Path)
    if (Test-Path -Path $Path) { (Get-Item -Path $Path).LastWriteTime = Get-Date }
    else { New-Item -Path $Path -ItemType File | Out-Null }
}

Update-FileTime -Path C:\psfaqs\NewItem\budget.txt
Update-FileTime -Path C:\psfaqs\NewItem\new-log.txt
"budget.txt kept its text: $(Get-Content -Path C:\psfaqs\NewItem\budget.txt)"
"new-log.txt exists:       $(Test-Path -Path C:\psfaqs\NewItem\new-log.txt)"

Output:

budget.txt kept its text: Q3 budget: $48,000
new-log.txt exists:       True

It never uses -Force on an existing file, so budget.txt kept its contents.

Create registry keys with New-Item

New-Item works in any PowerShell drive, including the registry. This creates a key under the current user’s Software key:

New-Item -Path 'HKCU:\Software\Contoso\Reports' -Force
New-ItemProperty -Path 'HKCU:\Software\Contoso\Reports' -Name 'Region' -Value 'Southwest'

-Force creates the missing Contoso key too. Microsoft’s guide to registry keys covers the rest, and the New-Item reference lists every item type.

Frequently Asked Questions

Other file cmdlets that pair with New-Item:

• Delete files and folders with Remove-Item
• Append text with Add-Content
• List the files in a folder
• Write to a log file