How to check if a file exists in a SharePoint library by file name?

[Anonymous]

I am trying to get a true/false response on if a file exists in a SP library given the file Name. The files do not have Titles. Based on my research, I have seen suggestions to use the Get file content using path action. I am able to test that and I do get that to run successfully. However, I don't know where to go from here. I'd like to have a condition after to essentially check if the file was found. What would it be checking on?

Edit: Now thinking Get file content using path is not the best action because the Flow fails on a bad path which I don't want to happen

[RezaDorrani · Accepted solution]

Hi @Anonymous 

Use get files properties only

do query on file name and then check the length using expression 

Regards,

Reza Dorrani

If this post helps, then please consider Accept it as the solution to help the other members find it more quickly

[v-alzhan-msft]

Hi @Anonymous ,

Have you take a try with @RezaDorrani 's workaround, you could take a try to achieve your needs.

Have your problem be solved?  If yes, please go ahead and mark the post as solved by clicking “Accept as Solution” so that this thread will be marked for other users to easily identify!

Best regards,

Alice       

Community Support Team _ Alice Zhang
If this post helps, then please consider Accept it as the solution to help the other members find it more quickly.

[srose]

But what do you do once you check the condition? How does that translate back to powerapps to complete the check?

[BranislavK]

Hi @RezaDorrani 

I have been trying to duplicate the solution you described. I got error:

The expression "FileLeafRef eq INS-TEST----.pdf" is not valid. Creating query failed.
clientRequestId: 35c0a1f9-d680-46e2-bdd2----
serviceRequestId: 35c0a1f9-d680-46e2-bdd2---

Can you please advise what might be the issue?

Thank you in advance.

[BranislavK]

Hi @RezaDorrani 

I see the issue I had not using single quotes for the file reference, after it was fixed, it has been working well. Sorry for the unnecessary question not noticing the typo issue at first.

Thank you.

[rgentile]

Thanks Reza, your solution helped me solve a problem.

[AndresBMR96]

This solution is superb! One thing you could do if you want to compare various files rather than just one file change

FileLeafReq eq 'contratc.docx' 

to:

FileLeafReq eq '[FILE NAME]' 

Where [FILE NAME] is a string variable of the "display name" of the file )which you can get from a "get. attachments" function.

[rsadhula]

Hi @RezaDorrani ,

FileLeafReq eq 'contratc.docx' 

Above filter doesn't work if we have more than 5000 items in library, Do we have any alternative for this ?

[ques0buffet]

I'm using the odata filtering on a library with 20k+ items without issue.

FileLeafRef eq 'filename.pdf' 

Note the  FileLeafRef   name.

[NigelP]

Hi @RezaDorrani

I used this one - the file existed but the response from length(body('Get_files_(properties_only)')?['value']) was zero.  THis one I think is a better way - How to check if SharePoint item already exists in Power Automate (tomriha.com)

Regards

Nigel

[jRufus]

Hi @NigelP 

The link you provide is meant for items in a list, not for files in a library.

Josu

[debasishjena]

hello Reza I want to check dynamically from powerapps or through power automate is the specific file exists or not.

please help me out

[Anonymous]

Guys !! Very important Note step along with what Reza mentioned. I have faced this problem and took hours to actually find the reason why it was not working for me.

The 'Get files (properties only)' action in Power Automate has a default limit of 100 items for each call. This is designed to avoid overloading your systems with too much data from a single request.

If you want to retrieve more than 100 items, you need to utilize pagination. You can enable pagination for the action by turning on the Pagination setting in the action's settings.

Here are the steps to turn on pagination:

1. Click on the three dots (ellipsis) in the top right corner of your 'Get files (properties only)' action.

2. Click on 'Settings'.

3. You'll see a toggle for 'Pagination'. Turn this on.

4. In the 'Threshold' box that appears, enter the maximum number of items you want to return. suppose you have 1654 files, you might set this to around 2000+ for example.

This should then return all the files in your library up to the limit you've set. However, please note that processing a large number of items can affect the performance and running time of your flow.

[Selom]

Thanks a lot Nigel, when I changed it to 'is not equal to 0' it finally worked. 'Greater than' didn't work for me. I followed the instructions in this thread for everything else.