Name Statement

This page is specific to the Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) Language Reference for Office 2010.

Renames a disk file, directory, or folder.

Syntax

Name oldpathname As newpathname

The Name statement syntax has these parts:

Part	Description
oldpathname	Required. String expression that specifies the existing file name and location — may include directory or folder, and drive.
newpathname	Required. String expression that specifies the new file name and location — may include directory or folder, and drive. The file name specified by newpathname can't already exist.

Remarks

The Name statement renames a file and moves it to a different directory or folder, if necessary. Name can move a file across drives, but it can only rename an existing directory or folder when both newpathname and oldpathname are located on the same drive. Name cannot create a new file, directory, or folder.

Using Name on an open file produces an error. You must close an open file before renaming it. Name arguments cannot include multiple-character (*) and single-character (?) wildcards.

Example

This example uses the Name statement to rename a file. For purposes of this example, assume that the directories or folders that are specified already exist. On the Macintosh, "HD:" is the default drive name and portions of the pathname are separated by colons instead of backslashes.

Dim OldName, NewName 
OldName = "OLDFILE": NewName = "NEWFILE" ' Define file names. 
Name OldName As NewName ' Rename file. 
 
OldName = "C:\MYDIR\OLDFILE": NewName = "C:\YOURDIR\NEWFILE" 
Name OldName As NewName ' Move and rename file.