Coreutils for Windows
UNIX-style core utilities for Windows. The same commands and pipelines you use on Linux, macOS, and WSL - natively.
A Microsoft-maintained build of uutils/coreutils, findutils, and grep packaged as a single multi-call binary for Windows. The goal is to make moving between Linux, macOS, WSL, containers, and Windows frictionless: the same commands, flags, and pipelines work the same way, so existing scripts carry over without translation.
Each command supports the standard --help flag for full syntax and options.
This project is in preview.
Install
Install Coreutils for Windows with WinGet:
winget install Microsoft.CoreutilsOr grab the latest build from our Release Page.
Creating custom alias
- PowerShell: Set-Alias ll 'ls' or a function in your $PROFILE for arguments, e.g.
function ll { ls -la --color=auto @args } - CMD: doskey ll=ls -la $*
Warning
Using PowerShell aliases will cause binary stream compatibility. Some utilities will not work when piped (e.g. xargs, find, ...)
Shell conflicts
Note
Any command not mentioned is included in this suite. The following only lists conflicts.
Note
You can remove additional utilities using coreutils-manager disable <utility name>.
See coreutils-manager --help for other management commands.
Warning
PowerShell 7.4 or later is required.
PowerShell 7.6 or later is recommended for ~ support.
Several commands share names with built-ins in CMD and PowerShell. Whether the Coreutils version runs depends on the shell, the PATH order, and (for PowerShell) the alias table.
Legend: ✅ ships and works ·
| Command | CMD | PowerShell 7.4+ | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
cat |
✅ | ||
cp |
✅ | ||
date |
|||
dir |
🛑 | 🛑 | Conflicts with the built-in DOS command |
echo |
|||
expand |
🛑 | 🛑 | Conflicts with the built-in DOS command |
find |
✅ | ✅ | Integrated port of the original DOS command |
hostname |
✅ | ✅ | Superset of the Windows built-in |
kill |
🛑 | 🛑 | Unavailable due to lack of signals on Windows; Implementing a form of SIGTERM/SIGKILL may be possible in the future however |
ls |
✅ | ||
mkdir |
|||
more |
🛑 | 🛑 | Conflicts with the built-in DOS command (consider edit as an alternative) |
mv |
✅ | ||
pwd |
✅ | ||
rm |
✅ | ||
rmdir |
|||
sleep |
✅ | ||
sort |
✅ | Integrated port of the original DOS command | |
tee |
✅ | ||
timeout |
🛑 | 🛑 | Relies on kill's functionality |
uptime |
✅ | ||
whoami |
🛑 | 🛑 | Conflicts with the built-in Windows command |
Windows caveats
| Difference | Detail |
|---|---|
| CRLF line endings | Windows text files often use CRLF (\r\n). Most utilities handle this transparently, but byte-oriented behavior can still observe the \r; for example, uniq may treat the final line as different from a preceding duplicate if the input uses CRLF and the final line has no trailing newline. |
No /dev/null |
Use NUL instead, for example find . -name "*.log" > NUL |
| No POSIX signals | Signals such as SIGHUP, SIGPIPE, and SIGUSR aren't available. Ctrl+C (SIGINT) works as expected. |
| Path separators | Both / and \ are accepted. Some utilities produce \-separated output, which can affect downstream piping. |
| File permissions | Windows uses ACLs, not POSIX permission bits. Permission-based predicates (for example find -perm) may behave differently or be unavailable. |
| Symbolic links | Reading existing symbolic links works without elevation. Creating new symbolic links requires Developer Mode (Settings > System > Advanced) or an elevated terminal. |
PowerShell Command Parsing
The installer integrates itself with interactive PowerShell sessions via PSReadLine.
It ensures that quoted expressions behave somewhat like they do under UNIX shells or CMD:
echo *.txt will then print a number of file names, while echo '*.txt' will print "*.txt" literally.
There are two shortcomings, however:
- PowerShell's escape character is still
`, not\
While you may writefind . \( -foo -bar \)with Bash, you still need to writefind . `( -foo -bar `)in PowerShell. - The integration rewrites interactive input, but it does not remove PowerShell's aliases
Get-Command ls,Get-Help ls, etc., will still showls, etc., as PowerShell built-ins or aliases. Due to limitations aroundPSNativeCommandPreserveBytePipewe cannot integrate ourselves in a more robust way with PowerShell.
Intentionally dropped
Commands that exist upstream but aren't shipped here because they rely on POSIX-only concepts, would break existing Windows scripts, or simply aren't useful on Windows.
dd: Perhaps useful in the future.dircolors,shred,sync,uname: Not particularly useful on Windows.chcon,chgrp,chmod,chown,chroot,groups,hostid,id,install,logname,mkfifo,mknod,nice,nohup,pinky,runcon,stdbuf,stty,tty,users,who: POSIX-only concepts unavailable on Windows.
Contributing
Bug reports and pull requests are welcome. See CONTRIBUTING.md for details on the repo layout and how changes flow between this repo and the upstream uutils projects.
