How can I check the size of a file in a Windows batch script?

Question

I want to have a batch file which checks what the filesize is of a file.

If it is bigger than %somany% kbytes, it should redirect with GOTO to somewhere else.

Example:

[check for filesize]
IF %file% [filesize thing Bigger than] GOTO No
echo Great! Your filesize is smaller than %somany% kbytes.
pause
exit
:no
echo Um... You have a big filesize.
pause
exit

Answer 1

If the file name is used as a parameter to the batch file, all you need is %~z1 (1 means first parameter)

If the file name is not a parameter, you can do something like:

@echo off
setlocal
set file="test.cmd"
set maxbytesize=1000

FOR /F "usebackq" %%A IN ('%file%') DO set size=%%~zA

if %size% LSS %maxbytesize% (
    echo.File is ^< %maxbytesize% bytes
) ELSE (
    echo.File is ^>= %maxbytesize% bytes
)

Answer 2

I like @Anders answer because the explanation of the %~z1 secret sauce. However, as pointed out, that only works when the filename is passed as the first parameter to the batch file.

@Anders worked around this by using FOR, which, is a great 1-liner fix to the problem, but, it's somewhat harder to read.

Instead, we can go back to a simpler answer with %~z1 by using CALL. If you have a filename stored in an environment variable it will become %1 if you use it as a parameter to a routine in your batch file:

@echo off
setlocal
set file=test.cmd
set maxbytesize=1000

call :setsize %file%

if %size% lss %maxbytesize% (
    echo File is less than %maxbytesize% bytes
) else (
    echo File is greater than or equal %maxbytesize% bytes
)
goto :eof

:setsize
set size=%~z1
goto :eof

I've been curious about J. Bouvrie's concern regarding 32-bit limitations. It appears he is talking about an issue with using LSS not on the filesize logic itself. To deal with J. Bouvrie's concern, I've rewritten the solution to use a padded string comparison:

@echo on
setlocal
set file=test.cmd
set maxbytesize=1000

call :setsize %file%

set checksize=00000000000000000000%size%
set checkmaxbytesize=00000000000000000000%maxbytesize%
if "%checksize:~-20%" lss "%checkmaxbytesize:~-20%" (
    echo File is less than %maxbytesize% bytes
) else (
    echo File is greater than or equal %maxbytesize% bytes
)
goto :eof

:setsize
set size=%~z1
goto :eof

Answer 3

%~z1 expands to the size of the first argument to the batch file. See

C:\> call /?

and

C:\> if /?

Simple example:

@ECHO OFF
SET SIZELIMIT=1000
SET FILESIZE=%~z1

IF %FILESIZE% GTR %SIZELIMIT% Goto No

ECHO Great! Your filesize is smaller than %SIZELIMIT% kbytes.
PAUSE
GOTO :EOF

:No
ECHO Um ... You have a big filesize.
PAUSE
GOTO :EOF

Answer 4

I prefer to use a DOS function. Feels cleaner to me.

SET SIZELIMIT=1000
CALL :FileSize %1 FileSize
IF %FileSize% GTR %SIZELIMIT% Echo Large file

GOTO :EOF

:FileSize
SET %~2=%~z1

GOTO :EOF

Answer 5

If your %file% is an input parameter, you may use %~zN, where N is the number of the parameter.

E.g. a test.bat containing

@echo %~z1

Will display the size of the first parameter, so if you use "test myFile.txt" it will display the size of the corresponding file.

Answer 6

Another example

  FOR %I in (file1.txt) do @ECHO %~zI

Answer 7

As usual, VBScript is available for you to use.....

Set objFS = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
Set wshArgs = WScript.Arguments
strFile = wshArgs(0)
WScript.Echo objFS.GetFile(strFile).Size & " bytes"

Save as filesize.vbs and enter on the command-line:

C:\test>cscript /nologo filesize.vbs file.txt
79 bytes

Use a for loop (in batch) to get the return result.

Answer 8

After a few "try and test" iterations I've found a way (still not present here) to get size of file in cycle variable (not a command line parameter):

for %%i in (*.txt) do (
    echo %%~zi
)

~z gets the file size of the file

Answer 9

This was my solution for evaluating file sizes without using VB/perl/etc. and sticking with native windows shell commands:

FOR /F "tokens=4 delims= " %%i in ('dir /-C %temp% ^| find /i "filename.txt"') do (  
    IF %%i GTR 1000000 (  
        echo filename.txt filesize is greater than 1000000  
    ) ELSE (  
        echo filename.txt filesize is less than 1000000  
    )
)  

Not the cleanest solution, but it gets the job done.

Answer 10

Create a one line batch file GetFileSize.bat containing

GetFileSize=%~z1

then call it

call GetFileSize  myfile.txt
if (%GetFileSize) == ()     goto No_File
if (%GetFileSize) == (0)    goto No_Data
if (%GetFileSize) GTR 1000  goto Too_Much_Data
rem Etc.

You can even create your test file on the fly to eliminate the pesky required file, note the double percent in the echo statement:

echo set GetFileSize=%%~z1 > %temp%\GetFileSize.bat
call %temp%\GetFileSize  myfile.txt
if (%GetFileSize) GTR 1000  goto Too_Much_Data
rem etc

This latter solution is antispaghetti. So nice. However, more disk writes. Check use count.

Answer 11

Just saw this old question looking to see if Windows had something built in. The ~z thing is something I didn't know about, but not applicable for me. I ended up with a Perl one-liner:

@echo off

set yourfile=output.txt
set maxsize=10000

perl -e "-s $ENV{yourfile} > $ENV{maxsize} ? exit 1 : exit 0"
rem if %errorlevel%. equ 1. goto abort
if errorlevel 1 goto abort

echo OK!
exit /b 0

:abort
echo Bad!
exit /b 1

Answer 12

Important to note is the INT32 limit of Batch: 'Invalid number. Numbers are limited to 32-bits of precision.'

Try the following statements:

IF 2147483647 GTR 2147483646 echo A is greater than B (will be TRUE)
IF 2147483648 GTR 2147483647 echo A is greater than B (will be FALSE!)

Any number greater than the max INT32 value will BREAK THE SCRIPT! Seeing as filesize is measured in bytes, the scripts will support a maximum filesize of about 255.9999997615814 MB !

Answer 13

You'll need two things.

filesize.bat 

@echo off
echo %~z1

And then what you're actually trying to size up.

Copy a file only if it's larger than zero / copy only a non-zero file

for /f %i in ('filesize filesize.bat') do set z=%i
if %z% gtr 0 ( copy filesize.bat noodles.bat )

I found this thread and it was almost what I needed, I tried a bunch of different things - this was mildly frustrating because robocopy looked to have /min:1 but got ALL bunged up because I wanted to rename the file in transit which made me have to use @#$!! batch script.

Answer 14

Just an idea:

You may get the filesize by running command "dir":

>dir thing

Then again it returns so many things.

Maybe you can get it from there if you look for it.

But I am not sure.