How to detect when a file changes using UiPath Studio

In UiPath Studio you can use the File Changed Trigger to monitor for file changes within a folder. Using this activity you can monitor when a new file is created, deleted or renamed, but also when the contents of the file have changed.

To detect when the contents of a file change, we’ll need to configure the File Changed Trigger activity in the following way:

• Path – set this to the folder which you want to monitor
• FileName Filter – leave it empty if you want to monitor all the files in the folder, or specify a file name if you are interested in a particular file. Alternatively, you can use wildcards (*) to match groups of files by extension.
• In the Properties panel:
  • ChangeType – select Changed
  • NotifyFilters – unselect FileName, and select LastWrite

The trigger will output a FileChangeTriggerArgs object which has a FileChangeInfo property that can be used to get more details about the change that has occured.

The type FileChangeInfo provides the following information:

• ChangeType: the type of change that occured (Created, Changed, Deleted or Renamed)
• FullPath: the absolute path to the file that was changed
• Name: the name of the file that was change
• OldFullPath: the absolute path of the file before it was renamed
• OldName: the file name before it was renamed

For a working example you can check out the WhenFileContentChanged in the automation-examples repository.