Counting the Number of Files or Subfolders Using PowerShell

As more and more items are stored on our computers, it is easy to lose count of how many items are contained in one folder. We have discussed in other articles limitations when it comes to folder sizes. While the likelihood of reaching 4,294,967,295 files in a folder is slim to none, there are times that we still need to know the number of files or subfolders within a folder.

If your folder only contains a small number of items, this can be easily done by opening the folder and subsequent subfolders and manually counting everything. However, if your folder has subfolders and those folders contain numerous subfolders themselves, counting manually can be tedious. This is where PowerShell comes in handy. By using a simple command, you can have your system automatically do the counting for you.

To do this you need to launch PowerShell. These steps assume that you have PowerShell set to be shown in the secondary Start menu. If not, look at this article explaining how to configure PowerShell to be shown.

1. Right-click on the Start button. Windows displays the secondary Windows Start menu.
2. Choose Windows PowerShell. Windows opens a PowerShell window.
3. Enter the file structure to the folder you're wanting to check by entering "cd" (without quotes) followed by the folder location. Hint: after entering "cd" (again, without quotes) add a space and then drag the folder you want to look at the PowerShell window. Windows places the correct folder path for you. Then press Enter. You will see "PS C:\FILEPATH"Ê
4. Enter the following command and press Enter. This counts all the files or subfolders within the parent folder you specified:

(Get-ChildItem -Recurse | Measure-Object).Count

5. Windows returns the number of all the files and subfolders.Ê
6. When done, close the PowerShell window.

Related Commands

There are some slightly similar commands that might be useful as you're looking to count folder contents. To use these commands, just enter them instead of the command in step 4 above.

Get the count of the items only in the parent directory, does not return the counts of the subfolder elements:

Get-ChildItem | Measure-Object | %{$_.Count}

Count all the subfolders within a parent directory:

(Get-ChildItem -Recurse -Directory | Measure-Object).Count

Count all the files within a parent directory (even those within subfolders, without adding the subfolders to the count):

(Get-ChildItem -Recurse -File | Measure-Object).Count

Knowing these commands will help you determine the number of items within a parent folder. All much faster, and less tedious than counting manually.

 This tip (13817) applies to Windows 10.