How to Get Process in PowerShell: Simple Commands and Examples

Use the Get-Process cmdlet in PowerShell to retrieve information about running processes. You can run Get-Process alone to list all processes or specify a process name like Get-Process -Name notepad to get details about a specific process.

Syntax

The basic syntax to get processes in PowerShell is:

• Get-Process: Lists all running processes.
• Get-Process -Name <processName>: Gets processes by their name.
• Get-Process -Id <processId>: Gets a process by its ID.

You can also use other parameters to filter or format the output.

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Get-Process [-Name <string[]>] [-Id <int[]>] [<CommonParameters>]

Example

This example shows how to list all running processes and then get details about the Notepad process specifically.

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Get-Process

Get-Process -Name notepad

Output

Handles  NPM(K)    PM(K)      WS(K)     CPU(s)     Id  ProcessName
-------  ------    -----      -----     ------     --  -----------
    123      10     15000      20000       0.03   1234  notepad

Common Pitfalls

Common mistakes include:

• Using incorrect process names (must match exactly, case-insensitive).
• Trying to get processes that require admin rights without running PowerShell as administrator.
• Expecting Get-Process to return stopped or background services (it only shows running processes).

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Get-Process -Name Notepad
# Correct: Process names are case-insensitive

Get-Process -Name notepad
# Correct: Use just the process name without extension

Quick Reference

Here is a quick cheat sheet for Get-Process usage:

Command	Description
Get-Process	Lists all running processes
Get-Process -Name notepad	Gets the Notepad process details
Get-Process -Id 1234	Gets the process with ID 1234
Get-Process | Where-Object {$_.CPU -gt 10}	Lists processes using more than 10 seconds of CPU time

Key Takeaways

Use Get-Process to list or find running processes in PowerShell.

Specify process names without extensions when using -Name parameter.

Run PowerShell as administrator to access all processes if needed.

Get-Process only shows running processes, not stopped services.

You can filter and format process output using PowerShell pipeline commands.