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.

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