Check for duplicate file names in SharePoint

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Posted on by trannguyen0410

I'm having trouble with checking for duplicate file names. I'm getting files from email and then creating files in a folder on SharePoint, and I want to check if the file name already exists in SharePoint so that it automatically increments the number at the end, like abc(1).pdf, abc(2).pdf, that way it won't overwrite an existing file. Please help me, thank you everyone.

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David_MA 14,956 Super User 2026 Season 1 on at

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You can use a get files action with a filter query to search for files with the name: FileLeafRef eq 'TestFile.docx'

FileLeafRef is the internal field that stores filenames. You can then use a length() expression to see if the value is greater than 0. If it is, the document library contains a file with that name.

Of course, before you can name the new file 'TestFile1.docx', you will need to check if that filename already exists. If it does, you will need to keep doing this until it finds a name that hasn't been incremented.

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trannguyen0410 62 on at

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Hi @David_MA,

I was using 'do until' to check whether the file exists, but the loop kept running forever. Now I switched to checking with 'get file metadata using path', and the condition is 'empty(body(Get_file_metadata_using_path)) = true', then set the variable to be the filename from the email; if false, set the variable to a new filename in the format yyyyMMddHHmmssfff. Would that be okay?

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David_MA 14,956 Super User 2026 Season 1 on at

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trannguyen0410 you can, of course, set up the workflow any way that works for you. However, you will need to show your workflow and what you had in mind. I am not understanding what you propose to do through a do until action.

I would suggest checking if the file already exists as I posted earlier:

However, if you're going to name the files with this format, yyyyMMddHHmmssfff, I would just always name the files with that format. The odds of generating two files with that naming convention will be astronomically low if not impossible.

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trannguyen0410 62 on at

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Hi @David_MA,

I always use yyyyMMddHHmmssfff to create filenames.

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