--- title: "Write to Files with PowerShell Set-Content: A Complete Guide" description: "Discover a complete guide on how to write to files using PowerShell and the Set-Content cmdlet, including tips on overwriting files and appending content." canonical: "https://adamtheautomator.com/powershell-write-to-file/" --- # Write to Files with PowerShell Set-Content: A Complete Guide > Discover a complete guide on how to write to files using PowerShell and the Set-Content cmdlet, including tips on overwriting files and appending content. Source: https://adamtheautomator.com/powershell-write-to-file/ --- ATA Learning Tap to hide [ ATA Learning ](/) * [Home](/) * [Tutorials](/tutorials/) * [Instructors](/author/) * [Advertising](/advertising/) * [Recommended Resources](/resources/) * [About Adam](/about-adam/) Search for: * [](https://twitter.com/adbertram) * [](https://github.com/Adam-the-Automator) * [](https://www.linkedin.com/company/adam-the-automator-llc) * [](/feed/) ![Write to Files with PowerShell Set-Content: A Complete Guide](https://adamtheautomator.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/powershell-write-file-set-content-powershell-write-to-file-1.png) # Write to Files with PowerShell Set-Content: A Complete Guide [![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/d0b9d42e21e5622713f8b693aa5c0f9244d5f7dd200ed29b8398f52dee5de337?s=192&d=mm&r=g)Adam Bertram](https://adamtheautomator.com/author/adam-bertram/)16 June 20192 min. read Categories: [IT Ops](/category/it-ops/) Tags:[PowerShell](/tag/powershell/) Table of Contents * [Creating a File/Overwriting a File](#creating-a-file-overwriting-a-file) * [Output to a File](#output-to-a-file) Set-Content is one of those core PowerShell cmdlets that I can’t do without. I still remember using VBscript before we could use PowerShell to write to a file. I remember always trying to remember what kind of object I needed to use and the method name. Was it _FileSystemObject_, _FileObject_ or what? It was a pain! Even when I did recall the method name was `CreateTextFile()`, I’d always forget to add `True` as the second argument. Here’s an example of the monstrosity I’m talking about. ```powershell Set objFSO=CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject") outFile="c:\file.txt" Set objFile = objFSO.CreateTextFile(outFile,True) objFile.Write "test string" objFile.Close ``` Compare that VBScript with this PowerShell: `Set-Content -Path 'C:\file.txt' -Value 'test string'` Which one do you prefer? I’ll take the PowerShell way! The PowerShell way uses a single cmdlet called Set-content. This cmdlet allows us to _much_ more easily use PowerShell to write to a file. This PowerShell cmdlet is a built-in cmdlet that has one purpose; to write to a file. It may have some parameters here and there to change up that behavior a bit, but it’s solely focused on writing to a file. Not to be confused with `Add-Content` though since they are similar. `Set-Content` overwrites the entire file while `Add-Content` _adds_ to a file. I learned that one the hard way multiple times when I first got started! ## Creating a File/Overwriting a File The `Set-Content` cmdlet is fairly simple. Below is a good example. This example shows that `Set-Content` can both create a file if it doesn’t exist or it can replace all of the contents inside of a pre-existing file. ```powershell PS> Test-Path -Path C:\test.txt False PS> Set-Content -Path C:\test.txt -Value 'foo' PS> Get-Content -Path C:\test.txt foo PS> Set-Content -Path C:\test.txt -Value 'bar' PS> Get-Content -Path C:\test.txt bar ``` ## Output to a File One cmdlet that can output to a file is [`Out-File`](https://adamtheautomator.com/out-file/), but `Set-Content` can perform the same task albeit a little differently. Perhaps you’d like to pull specific pieces of text from one text file and output lines to another file. By using `Get-Content` and Set-content, you can make this happen. Maybe I’ve got a text file with one server and their status per line. I’d like to read each server’s status and output that to a file. Using `Get-Content` to read the file and `Set-Content` to write to file, it’s possible. ```powershell PS> Get-Content -Path C:\test.txt SRV1 Status: Up SRV2 Status: Down SRV3 Status: Up PS> Get-Content -Path C:\test.txt | ForEach-Object { >>> $srvName = $_.Split(' ')[0] >>> Set-Content -Path "C:\$srvName.txt" -Value $_ } PS> Get-ChildItem -Filter 'SRV*' Directory: C:\ Mode LastWriteTime Length Name ---- ------------- ------ ---- -a---- 10/29/2017 12:38 PM 17 SRV1.txt -a---- 10/29/2017 12:38 PM 19 SRv2.txt -a---- 10/29/2017 12:38 PM 17 SRV3.txt PS> Get-ChildItem -Filter 'SRV*' | Get-Content SRV1 Status: Up SRV2 Status: Down SRV3 Status: Up ``` `Set-Content` is one of those core cmdlets that gets used constantly. It’s not fancy but works every time and is one you should have in your PowerShell bag of tricks. For a full breakdown, check out the [Set-Content](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/module/microsoft.powershell.management/set-content?view=powershell-5.1) Microsoft documentation. 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