How to List All Environment Variables in PowerShell

To list all environment variables in PowerShell, run Get-ChildItem on the Env: drive. Sorting by name makes the list easy to scan:

Get-ChildItem -Path Env: | Sort-Object -Property Name

Below I show how to read the output, pick out single variables, filter with wildcards, compare the Process, User and Machine scopes, and split PATH into readable lines. I tested it all in PowerShell 7.6 and 5.1.

List all environment variables

Env: is a PowerShell drive, like C:, that holds every environment variable in your session. Each item has a Name and a Value:

$all = Get-ChildItem -Path Env:
"Environment variables in this session: $($all.Count)"
"First item is a $($all[0].GetType().Name) with Name and Value"

Output:

Environment variables in this session: 97
First item is a DictionaryEntry with Name and Value

Your full list shows your username, PC name and profile paths, so be careful before you paste it into a forum or ticket. The aliases dir env: and ls env: give the same list.

Show specific variables

Pass one or more names after Env: to see just those variables:

Get-ChildItem -Path Env:OS, Env:PATHEXT, Env:NUMBER_OF_PROCESSORS, Env:PROCESSOR_ARCHITECTURE |
    Format-Table -Property Name, Value -AutoSize

Output:

Name                   Value
----                   -----
OS                     Windows_NT
PATHEXT                .COM;.EXE;.BAT;.CMD;.VBS;.VBE;.JS;.JSE;.WSF;.WSH;.MSC;.CPL
NUMBER_OF_PROCESSORS   16
PROCESSOR_ARCHITECTURE AMD64

For a single value, $env:OS is shorter. Setting and getting environment variables covers the $env: syntax in detail.

Filter environment variables with wildcards

Env: supports wildcards, so you can list a group of related variables. Here I create three for this session only, then list them:

$env:PSFAQS_REPORT = 'Q3-Sales-2026'
$env:PSFAQS_REGION = 'West'
$env:PSFAQS_OWNER = 'finance-team'

Get-ChildItem -Path Env:PSFAQS_* | Sort-Object -Property Name | Format-Table -AutoSize

Output:

Name          Value
----          -----
PSFAQS_OWNER  finance-team
PSFAQS_REGION West
PSFAQS_REPORT Q3-Sales-2026

To search values instead of names, use Where-Object: Get-ChildItem Env: | Where-Object Value -like '*Java*'.

List variables by scope: Process, User and Machine

Env: shows the Process scope, which combines the Machine and User variables plus anything your session added. The .NET Environment class reads each scope separately:

foreach ($scope in 'Process', 'User', 'Machine') {
    $vars = [Environment]::GetEnvironmentVariables($scope)
    '{0,-8} {1,3} variables' -f $scope, $vars.Count
}

Output:

Process   97 variables
User       6 variables
Machine   21 variables

List one scope’s names with [Environment]::GetEnvironmentVariables('User').Keys. Microsoft explains the scopes in about_Environment_Variables and the method in Environment.GetEnvironmentVariables.

List the PATH variable one folder per line

PATH is one long string separated by semicolons. Split it to read it, and filter it to find specific folders:

$entries = $env:Path -split ';' | Where-Object { $_ }
"PATH has $($entries.Count) folders. The Windows ones:"
$entries | Where-Object { $_ -like "$env:windir*" }

Output:

PATH has 32 folders. The Windows ones:
C:\WINDOWS\system32
C:\WINDOWS
C:\WINDOWS\System32\Wbem
C:\WINDOWS\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0
C:\WINDOWS\System32\OpenSSH

A missing Windows folder here explains many “is not recognized as the name of a cmdlet” errors for built-in tools.

Export environment variables to a file

To compare two PCs or save a snapshot, export the list to CSV:

Get-ChildItem -Path Env: | Sort-Object Name |
    Select-Object Name, Value |
    Export-Csv -Path C:\Reports\env-vars.csv -NoTypeInformation

Review the file before you share it, since it includes account and path details. In Command Prompt, the set command lists the same variables.

Frequently Asked Questions

If you work with env vars a lot, these help too:

• Set and get environment variables
• Remove environment variables
• Check if a variable exists
• Use global variables