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

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.

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

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.

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 :)

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

I am recently working on .Net 6 project with VS2022. and I need to rename my templatemicroservice to my UserMicroservice.

.Net 6 changes most of the things for you. like AssemblyNames and NameSpaces. Also, it changes the ProjectName references in .sln automatically. So, this answer will really help you to rename your service with no hurdles.

So, Steps I followed:

Open the solution in Visual Studio and did these steps:

1. I renamed my solution by right clicking on it. like, TemplateServiceSolution to UserServiceSolution.
2. Renamed all the Projects in solution by right clicking on them. like, TemplateService to UserService.
3. In a specific project, I searched the namespaces like: namespace TemplateService and replaced all by namespace UserService. Do this step in each project. Also relplace using TemplateService to using UserService.
4. Open your launchsettings.json, and rename anything related to old service, as I had few things in profiles of launchsettings.json.
5. Just to be sure, please check your startup and program.cs files as well, I didn't have any changes in them.

Closed the solution from Visual Studio and did these steps:

1. Closed the solution, and opened the File Explorer. Renamed all my project folders from TemplateService to UserService.
2. Open the .sln in notepad/notepad++, and must change the Folder Structure name. like for a particular project, I should give the correct .csproj paths. as shown in image, I need to rename TemplateService to UserService.

Open the solution in Visual Studio. Most of your Dependencies will be loaded as soon as you Load your solution in Visual Studio Code. and you are ready.

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.

You cannot rename a folder if your project is currently running

1. Stop your application Shift+F5
2. Rename your folder from the Solution Explorer (right-click > rename or F2)

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}"

Go to the .sln file, right click, open with Notepad++ (or any editor; Notepad++ is the fastest), find the path, change it.

Or simply, copy all the codes, open a new project with the desired name, and paste the code. Run debug and then delete the previous project. Done!

It worked for me!

The other answers provide lots of details on how to do it. Here's a shortcut, though, that can save you some work:

1. Rename the project folder
2. Rename the .csproj file
3. Mass replace the project name in all files in the solution (I use GrepWin, it has a convenient GUI with preview)

That way you don't have to mess around tediously with the Visual Studio GUI. You can also fix the namespace that way. You can use source control to validate the changes (e.g. open TortoiseGit Commit and look at the changes).

The simplest way:

1. Create a template from the current project
   Project -> Export Template... -> Project Template -> Finish
2. Create a new project using the template with the name you want it to have
   File -> New Project -> Find the template -> Give it the name you want -> Add to existing solution or just as new

That's it, you're done, you can now delete the other project if you want, but make sure the new one works as expected first. The template should retain all dependencies and project settings.

A bit late to the party but in VS2022 your suggested way was still the easiest for me (I do not like editing .sln files directly).

That is:

• Remove the project from the solution.

• Rename the folder outside

• Re-add the project to the solution.

For example if you want to rename Project 'HelloWorld' to 'HelloStackOverflow'.

1. In Visual Studio: Rename Project from 'HelloWorld' to 'HelloStackOverflow'
2. In Visual Studio: Remove Project 'HelloStackOverflow'
3. In the File System: Navigate to folder: Rename 'HelloWorld' to 'HelloStackOverflow'
4. In Visual Studio: Add existing Project 'HelloStackOverflow' in VS2022
5. In Visual Studio: If there are dependencies to this project, you have to remove them and add them to the new project.