Out-File

Out-File
    [-FilePath] <string>
    [[-Encoding] <string>]
    [-Append]
    [-Force]
    [-NoClobber]
    [-Width <int>]
    [-NoNewline]
    [-InputObject <psobject>]
    [-WhatIf]
    [-Confirm]
    [<CommonParameters>]

Out-File
    [[-Encoding] <string>]
    -LiteralPath <string>
    [-Append]
    [-Force]
    [-NoClobber]
    [-Width <int>]
    [-NoNewline]
    [-InputObject <psobject>]
    [-WhatIf]
    [-Confirm]
    [<CommonParameters>]

The Out-File cmdlet sends output to a file. It implicitly uses PowerShell's formatting system to write to the file. The file receives the same display representation as the terminal. This means that the output may not be ideal for programmatic processing unless all input objects are strings. When you need to specify parameters for the output, use Out-File rather than the redirection operator (>). For more information about redirection, see about_Redirection.

This example shows how to send a list of the local computer's processes to a file. If the file does not exist, Out-File creates the file in the specified path.

Get-Process | Out-File -FilePath .\Process.txt
Get-Content -Path .\Process.txt

 NPM(K)    PM(M)      WS(M)     CPU(s)      Id  SI ProcessName
 ------    -----      -----     ------      --  -- -----------
     29    22.39      35.40      10.98   42764   9 Application
     53    99.04     113.96       0.00   32664   0 CcmExec
     27    96.62     112.43     113.00   17720   9 Code

The Get-Process cmdlet gets the list of processes running on the local computer. The Process objects are sent down the pipeline to the Out-File cmdlet. Out-File uses the FilePath parameter and creates a file in the current directory named Process.txt. The Get-Content command gets content from the file and displays it in the PowerShell console.

This example prevents an existing file from being overwritten. By default, Out-File overwrites existing files.

Get-Process | Out-File -FilePath .\Process.txt -NoClobber

Out-File : The file 'C:\Test\Process.txt' already exists.
At line:1 char:15
+ Get-Process | Out-File -FilePath .\Process.txt -NoClobber
+               ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Get-Process cmdlet gets the list of processes running on the local computer. The Process objects are sent down the pipeline to the Out-File cmdlet. Out-File uses the FilePath parameter and attempts to write to a file in the current directory named Process.txt. The NoClobber parameter prevents the file from being overwritten and displays a message that the file already exists.

This example shows how to encode output with a specific encoding type.

$Procs = Get-Process
Out-File -FilePath .\Process.txt -InputObject $Procs -Encoding ascii -Width 50

The Get-Process cmdlet gets the list of processes running on the local computer. The Process objects are stored in the variable, $Procs. Out-File uses the FilePath parameter and creates a file in the current directory named Process.txt. The InputObject parameter passes the process objects in $Procs to the file Process.txt. The Encoding parameter converts the output to ASCII format. The Width parameter limits each line in the file to 50 characters so some data might be truncated.

This example shows how to use the Out-File cmdlet when you aren't in a FileSystem provider drive. Use the Get-PSProvider cmdlet to view the providers on your local computer. For more information, see about_Providers.

PS> Set-Location -Path Alias:

PS> Get-Location

Path
----
Alias:\

PS> Get-ChildItem | Out-File -FilePath C:\TestDir\AliasNames.txt

PS> Get-Content -Path C:\TestDir\AliasNames.txt

CommandType     Name
-----------     ----
Alias           % -> ForEach-Object
Alias           ? -> Where-Object
Alias           ac -> Add-Content
Alias           cat -> Get-Content

The Set-Location command uses the Path parameter to set the current location to the registry provider Alias:. The Get-Location cmdlet displays the complete path for Alias:. Get-ChildItem sends objects down the pipeline to the Out-File cmdlet. Out-File uses the FilePath parameter to specify the complete path and filename for the output, C:\TestDir\AliasNames.txt. The Get-Content cmdlet uses the Path parameter and displays the file's content in the PowerShell console.

This example uses $PSDefaultParameterValues to set the Width parameter for all invocations of Out-File and the redirection operators (> and >>) to 2000. This ensures that everywhere within the current scope that you output table formatted data to file, PowerShell uses a line width of 2000 instead of a line width determined by the PowerShell host's console width.

function DemoDefaultOutFileWidth() {
    try {
        $PSDefaultParameterValues['Out-File:Width'] = 2000

        $logFile = "$PWD\logfile.txt"

        Get-ChildItem Env:\ > $logFile

        Get-Service -ErrorAction Ignore |
            Format-Table -AutoSize |
            Out-File $logFile -Append

        Get-Process | Format-Table Id,SI,Name,Path,MainWindowTitle >> $logFile
    }
    finally {
        $PSDefaultParameterValues.Remove('Out-File:Width')
    }
}

DemoDefaultOutFileWidth

For more information about $PSDefaultParameterValues, see about_Preference_Variables.

This cmdlet supports the common parameters: -Debug, -ErrorAction, -ErrorVariable, -InformationAction, -InformationVariable, -OutBuffer, -OutVariable, -PipelineVariable, -ProgressAction, -Verbose, -WarningAction, and -WarningVariable. For more information, see about_CommonParameters.

You can pipe any object to this cmdlet.

This cmdlet returns no output.

Input objects are automatically formatted as they would be in the terminal, but you can use a Format-* cmdlet to explicitly control the formatting of the output to the file. For example, Get-Date | Format-List | Out-File out.txt

To send a PowerShell command's output to the Out-File cmdlet, use the pipeline. Alternatively, you can store data in a variable and use the InputObject parameter to pass data to the Out-File cmdlet.

Out-File saves data to a file but it doesn't produce any output objects to the pipeline.