How to Rename a File in C#

1. Use the Move() Method to Rename a File in C#
2. Use Copy() Method to Rename a File in C#

In this article, we will introduce different methods to rename a file using C# code.

• Using Move() method
• Using Copy() method

Use the Move() Method to Rename a File in C#

We will use the system-defined method Move() to rename a file. We will move the old file to a new file with a new name. The correct syntax to use this method is as follows.

File.Move(string oldFile, string newFile);

The built-in method Move() has two parameters. The details of its parameters are as follows

The program below shows how we can use the Move() method to rename a file.

using System;
using System.IO;

class RenameFile {
  static void Main() {
    string oldName = "D:\myfolder\myfile.txt";
    string newName = "D:\myfolder\mynewfile.txt";
    System.IO.File.Move(oldName, newName);
  }
}

The file must exist in the specified directory. If it does not exist, then the function will throw the FileNotFoundException error.

Use Copy() Method to Rename a File in C#

We will use the Copy() method to rename a file. This method copies the file to a new file and changes its directory to the specified directory. The correct syntax to use this method is as follows.

File.Copy(string oldFile, string newFile);

The built-in method Copy() has two parameters. The details of its parameters are as follows.

The program below shows how we can use the Copy() method to rename a file.

using System;
using System.IO;

public class RenameFile {
  public static void Main() {
    string oldFile = @"D:\oldfile.txt";
    string newFile = @"D:\newfile.txt";
    File.Copy(oldFile, newFile);
  }
}