How can I rename a project folder from within Visual Studio?

Question

My current solution for renaming the project folder is:

• Remove the project from the solution.
• Rename the folder outside Visual Studio.
• Re-add the project to the solution.

Is there a better way?

Answer 1

TFS users: If you are using source control that requires you to warn it before your rename files/folders then look at this answer instead which covers the extra steps required.

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To rename a project's folder, file (.*proj) and display name in Visual Studio:

• Close the solution.
• Rename the folder(s) outside Visual Studio. (Rename in TFS if using source control)
• Open the solution, ignoring the warnings (answer "no" if asked to load a project from source control).
• Go through all the unavailable projects and...
  • Open the properties window for the project (highlight the project and press Alt+Enter or F4, or right-click > properties).
  • Set the property 'File Path' to the new location.
    • If the property is not editable (as in Visual Studio 2012), then open the .sln file directly in another editor such as Notepad++ and update the paths there instead. (You may need to check-out the solution first in TFS, etc.)
  • Reload the project - right-click > reload project.
  • Change the display name of the project, by highlighting it and pressing F2, or right-click > rename.

Note: Other suggested solutions that involve removing and then re-adding the project to the solution will break project references.

If you perform these steps then you might also consider renaming the following to match:

1. Assembly
2. Default/Root Namespace
3. Namespace of existing files (use the refactor tools in Visual Studio or ReSharper's inconsistent namespaces tool)

Also consider modifying the values of the following assembly attributes:

1. AssemblyProductAttribute
2. AssemblyDescriptionAttribute
3. AssemblyTitleAttribute

Answer 2

This is straightforward in Visual Studio 2015 (possibly works in older versions)

1. In Solution Explorer, right click on Main solution → Rename
2. In Solution Explorer, right click on project (under solution) → Rename
3. In Solution Explorer, double click, or right click on Properties → goto Application Tab, rename Assembly name and Default namespace to match.
4. If you wish to also rename the namespace, open one of your class files. Right click the namespace → Rename.... This should search and replace all references to your namespace throughout the project.
5. Close the project → rename the project folder.
6. Edit the .sln file in Notepad, and change the path to the csproj, i.e., fu\bar.csproj → bar\bar.csproj.

Answer 3

There is another way doing this, using the *.sol, *csproj files.

1. Open your solution file.
2. Search for the *.csproj you would like to change.

3. It will be like this (relative to the *.sol file):

   Project("{FAE04EC0-301F-11D3-BF4B-00C04F79EFBC}") = "Shani.Commands.Impl", "Shani.Commands.Impl\Shani.Commands.Impl.csproj", "{747CFA4B-FC83-419A-858E-5E2DE2B948EE}"

4. And just change the first part to the new diretory for example:

   Impl\Shani.Commands.Impl\Shani.Commands.Impl.csproj

5. Of course, don't forget to move the whole project to that directory.

Answer 4

Man, have I struggled with this. Unfortunately there isn't a one click solution in Visual Studio, but if you're running Visual Studio 2012 and your project is under source control with Team Foundation Server, here is how I got it to work, while keeping the source history:

(Make sure you read @mjv's comment below, as he notes that you can skip step 5-10)

1. Make sure you have checked in all changes, so you have no pending changes.
2. Remove the project from the solution, by right clicking and selecting Remove.
3. Now, in Windows Explorer, rename the project folder.
4. Go back to Visual Studio, and in Solution Explorer, right click the solution and choose Add -> Existing project. Select the project file for the project you removed in step 2, which should be located in the renamed folder.
5. Now the project is back in the solution, but the project doesn't seem to be added to source control. To fix that, open Source Control Explorer.
6. Find the project folder in Source Control Explorer, that corresponds with the project folder on your disk, that you renamed in step 3.
7. Rename the folder in Source Control Explorer, so it has the same name as the project folder on disk.
8. Now take a look at your pending changes. You should have changes to the solution file and a rename operation on the project folder.
9. Do a rebuild and make sure everything compiles correctly. If you had inter-project references to the project you renamed, you need to add them again to the individual projects that referenced it.
10. You should be all set now. Go and check everything in.

The above guide worked for me. If it doesn't work for you, try and delete your local solution completely, and remove the folder mapping in your workspace. Restart Visual Studio just in case. Make sure you actually deleted the whole solution from your computer. Now readd the solution mapping to your workspace and get the latest version. Now try the above steps. The same applies if something goes wrong while following the above steps. Just delete your solution locally and get the latest source, and you'll have a clean slate to work with.

If you're still having problems, make sure that you haven't changed anything manually in the solution file, or trying other 'tricks' before trying the above steps. If you have changed something and checked it in, you might want to consider doing a rollback to the point just before you started messing with the renaming of the project.

Of course, you'd also want to rename the project itself, in Solution Explorer. You can do this before the steps above, but in that case, make sure you check in that change before applying the steps above. You can also do it afterwards, but make sure you follow all the steps above first, and check in your changes before trying to rename the project name in Solution Explorer. I don't recommend trying to mix the above steps with a rename of the project name in Solution Explorer. It might work though, but I would recommand doing it in 2 separate changesets.

Answer 5

Currently, no. Well, actually you can click the broken project node and in the properties pane look for the property 'Path', click the small browse icon, and select the new path.

Voilà :)

Answer 6

The simpler solution is the following:

1. Right-click the project and rename it.
2. (optional) Open the project’s property settings and modify the assembly name (and optionally the default namespace) to use the new project name.
3. (optional) Select the namespace name in a source file, right click and select Refactor/Rename to globally rename the namespace to the new project name.
4. (optional) Open the AssemblyInfo.cs file and change the assembly name to match.
5. Save and close the solution.
6. Using Windows Explorer, rename the project folder to the new name.
7. Open the SLN file in a text editor and find the one reference to the project path and change it to use the new folder name.

There are four needed steps, but seven recommended. At the end of the day though the project is renamed completely. Technically, the folder name for the project doesn’t have to match the project itself, so even that step is optional, but it can be confusing if they don’t match. The same for the assembly and namespace names.

Answer 7

In andersjanmyr's answer it's easier to rename the project first.

1. Rename the project.
2. Close the solution (save it).
3. Rename the folders outside Visual Studio.
4. Open the solution, ignoring the warnings.
5. Go through all unavailable projects and set the property 'File Path' to the new location of your project file, i.e. someproject.csproj.
6. Reload the project.

Also, after those steps are carried out, you might want to rename other references to your old project name.

In project properties, update the Assembly Name and Default Namespace.

This will update the following in the project file...

<RootNamespace>SomeProjectName</RootNamespace>
<AssemblyName>SomeProjectName</AssemblyName>

...and will get rid of the error "Namespace does not correspond to file location, should be: 'SomeProjectName'"

Rename your root namespace (if you have ReSharper right click the Namespace and go Refactor -> Rename).

Change all occurrences of your old project name in AssemblyInfo.cs.

Answer 8

For those using Visual Studio + Git and wanting to keep the file history (works renaming both projects and/or solutions):

1. Close Visual Studio

2. In the .gitignore file, duplicate all ignore paths of the project you want to rename with renamed versions of those paths.

3. Use the Git move command like this:

   git mv <old_folder_name> <new_folder_name>
   

   See documentation for additional options: https://git-scm.com/docs/git-mv

4. In your .sln file: Find the line defining your project and change the folder name in path. The line should look something like:

   Project("{FAE04EC0-301F-11D3-BF4B-00C04F79EFBC}") = "<Project name>", "<path-to-project>\<project>.csproj"
   

5. Open Visual Studio, and right click on project → Rename

6. Afterwards, rename the namespaces.

   I read that ReSharper has some options for this. But simple find/replace did the job for me.

7. Remove old .gitignore paths.

Answer 9

For Visual Studio 2017 you can use my Visual Studio extension:

Download

It will rename the project in:

• The project location folder
• The solution file
• References in other projects
• The assembly name, information
• The default namespace

Answer 10

I just had to do this myself (using Visual Studio 2010). As some folks have answered, the simplest step seems to be:

1. Close the Visual Studio project.
2. Open the .sln file and rename the project directory prefix for each of the .csproj occurrences.
3. Save the .sln file
4. Rename the actual project folder directory on your hard drive to match your changes in the .sln file.
5. Open the .sln (in Visual Studio) and rebuild

Answer 11

Using Visual Studio 2019, I followed below steps to make the project name change successful:

1. Close the solution
2. Rename the project folder to match with new project name
3. Open solution file in notepad++ kind of editor and edit the FilePath with new project name folder
4. Open the solution and click No if it ask whether you want to open from source control
5. Right click the project which you want renaming and click Properties then change below: Change Assembly Name, Default Assembly namespace and Assembly information with new name
6. Open any of the file and move the file to new namespace which will be done by all files
7. If you have app.config kind of files then make sure to move them also in new namespace
8. Rebuild it which will work successfully

Answer 12

What worked for me in Visual Studio 2017:

• Close solution in Visual Studio
• Rename the directories of projects in the solution.
  • (push change in source control - Git in my case)
• Edit the .sln file in a text editor (outside Visual Studio 2017) changing the name of the directory.
• Reopen the solution in Visual Studio

It said something like "re-adding project". I rebuilt everything and everything was good to go.

Answer 13

A proven solution for Visual Studio extension for Data Tools for Business Intelligence (SSDT-BI 2013):

1. Move the Project folder to its new location (don't rename anything yet)
2. In Solution Explorer, rename the Project / Solution.
3. Close (and save) the newly-renamed project.
4. Rename the project's folder and .sln file.
5. Use a text editor and open the newly-renamed project solution file (.sln) (I used Notepad++)
6. In line number 6 you'll see: "Project {fdjfksdjk4387!...} = "OLDPROJECT", "OLDFOLDER\OLDPROJECT.rptproj". Rename everything with the new names used in step 4. (i.e. ... = "NEWPROJECT", "NEWFOLDER\NEWPROJECT.rptproj"... )
7. That's it!

It was tested 100% and worked flawlessly in my case.

NOTE: I can't confirm if it works under different project templates and other Visual Studio versions. As always, do backup everything beforehand.

Answer 14

See item 3 in the linked article.

1. Close the solution and the IDE.
2. In Windows Explorer: Change the directory name to the new name.
3. In Windows Explorer: Open the .sln file with a text editor.
4. Change the directory name to the new name and save.
5. Restart the IDE and open the solution from menu File → Recent Files menu if it doesn't start automatically.
6. Click on the project folder in Solution Explorer and check the path property in the properties at the bottom. It will now be referencing to the new project folder.

It worked for me.

Answer 15

I've had to do this lots of times. It's really useful to be able to repurpose an existing project, but be able to rename text in namespaces, files, and folders (including file / directory names).

Using a recursive find and replace starting at the root folder means the rename doesn't break links to projects in the solution files and project references.

To this end, I have created a project to do just this. The application also makes an effort to ignore version control folders such as .git, .svn and the .vs settings file. More information is in the README.

https://github.com/garethrbrown/vs-project-rename

Answer 16

I just solved this problem for myself writing a global dotnet tool (that also takes into account git+history).

Install via dotnet tool install -g ModernRonin.ProjectRenamer, use with renameproject <oldName> <newName>.

Documentation/Tinkering/PRs at

https://github.com/ModernRonin/ProjectRenamer

Answer 17

Note: This fix is for Visual Studio 2008, but it should work here.

1. Using Windows Explorer, rename both the solution folders (the parent folder and the child folder) to the new solution name.
2. Delete the .sln file located in the parent folder.
3. In Visual Studio, select menu File ► Open Project.
4. Drill into the new folder you just renamed and open the .csproj file (located in the child folder).
5. Right-click the project name and rename it to what you want. (It should be the same name as the folder in step 1.)
6. Select menu File ► Close Solution. A dialog will ask if you want to save changes to the .sln file. Click Yes.
7. In the Save File As dialog, point to the newly renamed parent folder and click Save. (Note: Make sure the .sln file has the same name as the folder. It is not required, but it maintains consistency.)

Done.

Answer 18

I have written a small tool that automates all these steps. It also supports Subversion for now.

Information about current releases can be found at Visual Studio Project Renamer Infos.

The latest releases can now be downloaded from the Visual Studio Project Renamer Download Page.

Feedback is much appreciated.

Answer 19

I often had the same problem of renaming a project in Visual Studio and editing the folder name, project name, and .sln file in order to accomplish that. I just wrote a VBScript script that accomplishes all that. You have to be careful with the strings you choose for replacing.

You just have to put the .vbs file in the same directory as the .sln file of the solution.

' Script parameters'
Solution = "Rename_Visual_Studio_Project" '.sln'
Project = "Rename_Visual_Studio_Project" '.csproj'
NewProject = "SUCCESS"

Const ForReading = 1
Const ForWriting = 2

Set objFso = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
scriptDirr = objFso.GetParentFolderName(wscript.ScriptFullName)

' Rename the all project references in the .sln file'
Set objFile = objFso.OpenTextFile(scriptDirr + "\" + Solution + ".sln", ForReading)
fileText = objFile.ReadAll
newFileText = Replace(fileText, Project, NewProject)
Set objFile = objFSO.OpenTextFile(scriptDirr + "\" + Solution + ".sln", ForWriting)
objFile.WriteLine(newFileText)
objFile.Close

' Rename the .csproj file'
objFso.MoveFile scriptDirr + "\" + Project + "\" + Project + ".csproj", scriptDirr + "\" + Project + "\" + NewProject + ".csproj"

' Rename the folder of the .csproj file'
objFso.MoveFolder scriptDirr + "\" + Project, scriptDirr + "\" + NewProject

Answer 20

1. Rename the project in the solution and the project folder

2. Delete the project from the solution

3. Add the existing project to the solution (your renamed project)

It works for me. TFS will also track the new project.

Answer 21

This worked well for me in Visual Studio 2019.

1. Rename the solution, projects in Visual Studio by simply single clicking on the file names as normal.
2. Rename the namespaces in Visual Studio.
3. Rename the desired elements on the main project page (publish location, application, default namespace, whatever). As noted correctly, this does nothing for the folders, but it does rename the project files and keeps everything tied together in Visual Studio.
4. Close Visual Studio.
5. Rename the folders.
6. Open Visual Studio and reply 'no' to getting projects from Source Control.
7. Delete the unloaded project references.
8. Add each project back in using Add existing project from Solution. This tied everything together and the project built for me.

Please comment on and correct anything above that does not work.

Answer 22

This is how I renamed my existing project in VS19.

1. Close the visual studio project
2. Rename and open the each project folder name on your drive
3. Rename each .csproj
4. Open .sln file and rename the project directory prefix for each of the .csproj occurrences.
5. Open the .sln file in visual studio and rebuild
6. Update prevoius nameSpace refrence with new one by going through each file or using ReplaceAll

Answer 23

When using TFS, step 2 is actually to rename the folder in source control and then get the latest before reopening the solution.

Answer 24

We recently uploaded a beta of a free Visual Studio extension which does this stuff for you.

Have a look at Visual Studio Gallery: Gallery Download

Answer 25

Well, I did it my way

• Close Visual Studio 2012
• Rename your subdirectory to the preferred name under .sln
• Delete the *.suo file
• Open the solution again, and fix any properties of Project(s) loaded to meet the new subdirectory name

Answer 26

1. Rename the project outside Visual Studio.
2. Edit your_project_name.sln with a text editor, and rename the path to the new path.

Answer 27

Open .sln in a text editor, and in the following line change <FolderName> to your new folder name Project("{FAE04EC0-301F-11D3-BF4B-00C04F79EFBC}") = "Ricky", "\.csproj", "{021CC6B0-8CFB-4194-A103-C19AF869D965}"

Answer 28

After changing the folder name, open the .sln file in Notepad and change the path to new path.

Answer 29

Similar issues arise when a new project has to be created, and you want a different project folder name than the project name.

When you create a new project, it gets stored at

./path/to/pro/ject/YourProject/YourProject.**proj

Let's assume you wanted to have it directly in the ject folder:

./path/to/pro/ject/YourProject.**proj

My workaround to accomplish this is to create the project with the last part of the path as its name, so that it doesn't create an additional directory:

./path/to/pro/ject/ject.**proj

When you now rename the project from within Visual Studio, you achieve the goal without having to leave Visual Studio:

./path/to/pro/ject/YourProject.**proj

The downside of this approach is that you have to adjust the default namespace and the name of the Output binary as well, and that you have to update namespaces in all files that are included within the project template.

Answer 30

I use Visual Studio 2013 and TFS 2013.

I did it like this:

1. Open Visual Studio, without opening the solution itself, and use Source Control Explorer to find and rename folders for projects
2. Double-click the solution file in Source Control Explorer to open a solution.
3. You get a question: "Projects have recently been added to this solution. Do you want to get them from source control?", and you choose Yes.
4. Now the folder and project structure are there, but now files, so now you get the latest version from source control
5. Try to build and commit changes.