List folders at or below a given depth in Powershell

Question

I have a directory which contains a lot of folders. I want to list all folder (path) that go deeper than 2 levels. So in below case folder 1 & 2.

Directory/folder1
Directory/folder1/test1/test/testsub
Directory/folder1/test2
Directory/folder1/test3
Directory/folder2/blablabla/bla/1
Directory/folder3/test
Directory/folder4/test
Directory/folder5/test

I was trying the following:

$Depth = 3
$Path = "."

$Levels = "\*" * $Depth
$Folder = Get-Item $Path
$FolderFullName = $Folder.FullName
Resolve-Path $FolderFullName$Levels | Get-Item | ? {$_.PsIsContainer} | Write-Host

Answer 1

I have created a search from index of x to a certain index of a folder I am looking for which should allow you to search between 2 and beyond

$Folders = Get-ChildItem -Path C:\Folder1 -Recurse -Directory  

If you know the name of a folder that you want to be the max index you can search for its index then you can search between x index and max index

if($folder.name -eq "Admin")
{
    #Get the index of the known folder
    $folderIndex = $folder.FullName.ToString().Split('\\').Count
}

Set the starting index in this example 2 you can add "-and $folder.FullName.ToString().Split('\').Count -lt $folderIndex" to get the folders between 2 and max index id

if($folder.FullName.ToString().Split('\\').Count -ge 2) 
{
    $folderIndex2 = $folder.FullName.ToString().Split('\\').Count
    $folder.FullName + ' Index ID:' + $folderIndex2
}

The output would show up as PS C:\Users\Programmer> $folder.FullName + ' Index ID:' + $folderIndex2

C:\Folder1\Folder2\Folder3\Folder4 Index ID:5 The drive itself is counted as index 1

Hope this helps

Answer 2

The solution immediately below, which builds on your own, assumes that your intent is to find those child directories whose subtrees exceed a given depth.

If you instead want to find all directory paths that are at a given depth or deeper, see the bottom section.
Your approach cannot achieve that, because it finds directories at the given depth only, not also below.

---

Your own clever wildcard-based approach should work in principle, but:

• (a) it can be greatly streamlined.

• (b) additional work is needed to limit output to the distinct list of those child folders whose subtrees are too deep.

(a) Streamlining your approach:

$Depth = 3
$Path = '.'

$Levels = '/*' * $Depth
Get-ChildItem -Directory $Path/$Levels

• As in your own approach, '/*' * $Depth dynamically creates a multi-directory-level wildcard expression (e.g., /*/* for a $Depth of 2) that can be appended to the input $Path to match only paths at that level.

• The -Directory switch (PSv3+) limits matching to directories only.

(b) Limiting output to the distinct set of top-level folder with too-deep subtrees:

$Depth = 3
$Path = '.'

$Levels = '/*' * $Depth
Get-ChildItem -Directory $Path/$Levels |
  ForEach-Object { ($_.FullName -split '[\\/]')[-$Depth] } |
    Select-Object -Unique

^{Note: Splitting by [/\\] - that is, by either / or \ - makes the solution work on Unix-like platforms too (PowerShell Core); on Windows, -split '\\' (by an escaped \) is sufficient.}

With your sample folder hierarchy, the above would yield:

folder1
folder2

• If you want the full paths instead, append
  | Convert-Path -LiteralPath { "$Path/$_" }.

• If you want directory-info objects ([System.IO.DirectoryInfo]) instead, append
  | Get-Item -LiteralPath { "$Path/$_" }.

---

Optional reading: Getting folders up to, at, or beyond a certain depth:

Note:

• Even though the solutions below target folders (directories), you can include files too by simply omitting -Directory, or target files only by replacing -Directory with -File.

• For simplicity, the commands implicitly target the current directory.

---

At-a-given-depth-only logic:

This is the same logic employed in the solution above; the following code lists folders at depth 2 only, i.e. those at the grandchild level (child directories of child directories) - note that, unlike with Get-ChildItem -Depth, depth counting starts with 1, i.e. 1 refers to child directories:

$depth = 2 # grandchild directories only

Get-ChildItem -Directory -Path ('*/' * $depth)

• To output full paths, enclose the Get-ChildItem command in (...).FullName or pipe it to Select-Object -ExpandProperty FullName.

• To output relative paths (e.g., folder1/test1/test/testsub), additional work is needed, because adding -Name will not work as expected in this case (it will output just the directory names):

$depth = 2 # grandchild directories

# Calculate the length of the path prefix for determining relative paths.
# (Using the current dir ($PWD) as the reference path here.)
$PrefixLen = (Convert-Path -LiteralPath $PWD).Length + 1

$Levels = '/*' * $Depth
Get-ChildItem -Directory -Path ('*/' * $depth) |
  ForEach-Object { $_.FullName.Substring($PrefixLen) }

Up-to-a-given-depth logic:

The PSv5+ -Depth parameter limits Get-ChildItem's recursion depth, i.e., it only finds items up to the specified depth, but note that it is depth 0, not 1 that represents the immediate children.
Note that use of -Depth implies -Recurse, though you may specify the latter as well.

For instance, to enumerate child folders and grandchild folders (2 levels) in the current directory, use:

$depth = 2 # child and grandchild directories

Get-ChildItem -Directory -Depth ($depth - 1)

• To output full paths, enclose the Get-ChildItem command in (...).FullName or pipe it to Select-Object -ExpandProperty FullName.

• To output relative paths, simply add the -Name switch to the Get-ChildItem call.

At-a-given-depth-or-deeper logic:

Limiting results to items at levels greater than or equal to a given depth requires a custom solution:

$depth = 2 # grandchild directories and below

Get-ChildItem -Directory -Name -Recurse |
  Where-Object { ($_ -split '[/\\]').Count -ge 2 } |
    Get-Item -LiteralPath { "$PWD/$_" }

^{If your input path isn't the (implied) current dir., substitute that path for $PWD.}

• To output full paths, replace Get-Item with Convert-Path.

• To output relative paths, simply omit the Get-Item call.

Answer 3

Please try this

$Folders = Get-ChildItem 'C:\Program Files' -Directory -Recurse -Depth 1 | 
     Select-Object -ExpandProperty fullname | 
     Sort-Object
$Folders