PowerShell: Output A List of Recently Created Or Modified Files

At times there is need to get a list of files that have been updated. This could for the following reasons:

• Audit compliance to maintain records of application changes.
• Backup verification to confirm the right files were backed up.
• Verification of changed files to confirm which files were added, modified, or deleted during an update.
• Security checks to ensure that there have been no unauthorised or suspicious files changed or installed through hacking.
• Troubleshooting Issues after a new application release by seeing a list of changed files can help identify the source of issues.

Based on the information I found online, I put together a PowerShell script that was flexible enough to meet the needs of the above scenarios, as I encountered one of them this week. I'll let you guess the scenario I faced.

At its core, the following PowerShell script uses the Get-ChildItem command to list out all files recursively across all sub-folders, ordered by the created date descending with the addition of handful of optional parameters.

Get-ChildItem -Path C:\My-Path -Recurse -Include *.png | 
			Select -Last 5 CreationTime,LastWriteTime,FullName | 
			Sort-Object -Property CreationTime -Descending | 
			Export-Csv "file-list.csv"

Breakdown of the parameters used:

Parameter/Object	Detail	Is Optional
-Path	The folder path to where files need to be listed.	No
-Recurse	Get files from the path and its subdirectories	Yes
-Include	Filter the file output through a path element or pattern,. This only works when the "Recurse" parameter is present.	Yes
Select	Set the maximum output (-Last) and list of fields to be listed.	Yes
Sort-Object	Specify field and sort order.	Yes
Export-Csv	Export the list of files list to a CSV.	Yes

If the files need to be sorted by last modified date, the Sort-Object property needs to be set to "LastWriteTime".

When the script is run, you'll see the results rendered in the following way:

CreationTime        LastWriteTime       FullName
------------        -------------       --------
25/05/2023 20:33:44 25/05/2023 20:33:44 X:\Downloads\synology\Screenshot 2023-05-25 at 20.33.38.png
16/05/2023 14:18:21 16/05/2023 14:18:21 X:\Downloads\synology\Screenshot 2023-05-16 at 14.18.15.png

Further Information

• How to Sort Files by Date in PowerShell?
• PowerShell - Get-ChildItem