PowerShell on macOS - Mini Project: Build & Apply

PowerShell on macOS: Basic Script to List and Filter Files

📖 Scenario: You are using PowerShell on your Mac to manage files in a folder. You want to list all files and then filter files by size.

🎯 Goal: Build a PowerShell script that lists files in a folder, sets a size limit, filters files larger than that size, and displays the filtered list.

📋 What You'll Learn

Create a variable with a list of files in the current directory

Create a variable to hold a size limit in bytes

Filter the list of files to only those larger than the size limit

Display the filtered list of files

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

Managing files on macOS using PowerShell helps automate tasks like cleaning up large files or organizing documents.

💼 Career

PowerShell skills on macOS are useful for system administrators and developers who work in cross-platform environments.

1

Get the list of files in the current directory

Create a variable called files and set it to the list of files in the current directory using Get-ChildItem -File.

PowerShell

# Create a variable called files with the list of files in the current directory
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use Get-ChildItem -File to get only files, not folders.

2

Set a size limit in bytes

Create a variable called sizeLimit and set it to 1000 to represent 1000 bytes.

PowerShell

$files = Get-ChildItem -File
# Create a variable called sizeLimit and set it to 1000
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Just assign the number 1000 to sizeLimit.

3

Filter files larger than the size limit

Create a variable called largeFiles and set it to the files from files where the Length property is greater than sizeLimit. Use Where-Object with a script block.

PowerShell

$files = Get-ChildItem -File
$sizeLimit = 1000
# Filter files larger than sizeLimit into largeFiles
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use Where-Object { $_.Length -gt $sizeLimit } to filter files by size.

4

Display the filtered list of large files

Use Write-Output to display the variable largeFiles.

PowerShell

$files = Get-ChildItem -File
$sizeLimit = 1000
$largeFiles = $files | Where-Object { $_.Length -gt $sizeLimit }
# Display the largeFiles variable
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use Write-Output $largeFiles to show the filtered files.