Create an empty file on the commandline in windows (like the linux touch command)

Question

An easy way to replace the touch command on a windows command line like cmd would be:

type nul > your_file.txt

This will create 0 bytes in the your_file.txt file.

This would also be a good solution to use in windows batch files.

Another way of doing it is by using the echo command:

echo.> your_file.txt

echo. - will create a file with one empty line in it.

---

If you need to preserve the content of the file use >> instead of >

>   Creates a new file
>>  Preserves content of the file

Example

type nul >> your_file.txt

---

You can also use call command.

Calls one batch program from another without stopping the parent batch program. The call command accepts labels as the target of the call.

Example:

call >> your_file.txt

--- or even if you don't want make it hard you can Just install Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL). Then, type.

wsl touch

or

wsl touch textfilenametoedit.txt

Quotes are not needed.

Windows does not natively include a touch command.

You can use any of the available public versions or you can use your own version. Save this code as touch.cmd and place it somewhere in your path

@echo off
    setlocal enableextensions disabledelayedexpansion

    (for %%a in (%*) do if exist "%%~a" (
        pushd "%%~dpa" && ( copy /b "%%~nxa"+,, & popd )
    ) else (
        type nul > "%%~fa"
    )) >nul 2>&1

It will iterate over it argument list, and for each element if it exists, update the file timestamp, else, create it.

You can use this command: ECHO >> filename.txt

it will create a file with the given extension in the current folder.

UPDATE:

for an empty file use: copy NUL filename.txt

The answer is wrong, it only works when the file does not exist. If the file exists, using the first does nothing, the second adds a line at the end of the file.

The correct answer is:

copy /b filename.ext +,,

I found it here: https://superuser.com/questions/10426/windows-equivalent-of-the-linux-command-touch/764721#764721

On windows Power Shell, you can use the following command:

New-Item <filename.extension>

or

New-Item <filename.extension> -type file

Note: New-Item can be replaced with its alias ni

I'm surprised how many answers here are just wrong. Echoing nothing into a file will fill the file with something like ECHO is ON, and trying to echo $nul into a file will literally place $nul into the file. Additionally for PowerShell, echoing $null into a file won't actually make a 0kb file, but something encoded as UCS-2 LE BOM, which can get messy if you need to make sure your files don't have a byte-order mark.

After testing all the answers here and referencing some similar ones, I can guarantee these will work per console shell. Just change FileName.FileExtension to the full or relative-path of the file you want to touch; thanks to Keith Russell for the COPY NUL FILE.EXT update:

CMD w/Timestamp Updates

copy NUL FileName.FileExtension

This will create a new file named whatever you placed instead of FileName.FileExtension with a size of 0 bytes. If the file already exists it will basically copy itself in-place to update the timestamp. I'd say this is more of a workaround than 1:1 functionality with touch but I don't know of any built-in tools for CMD that can accomplish updating a file's timestamp without changing any of its other content.

CMD w/out Timestamp Updates

if not exist FileName.FileExtension copy NUL FileName.FileExtension

Powershell w/Timestamp Updates

if (!(Test-Path FileName.FileExtension -PathType Leaf)) {New-Item FileName.FileExtension -Type file} else {(ls FileName.FileExtension ).LastWriteTime = Get-Date}

Yes, it will work in-console as a one-liner; no requirement to place it in a PowerShell script file.

PowerShell w/out Timestamp Updates

if (!(Test-Path FileName.FileExtension -PathType Leaf)) {New-Item FileName.FileExtension -Type file}

Use the following command on the your command line:

fsutil file createnew filename  requiredSize

The parameters info as followed:

fsutil - File system utility ( the executable you are running )

file - triggers a file action

createnew - the action to perform (create a new file)

filename - would be literally the name of the file

requiredSize - would allocate a file size in bytes in the created file