How to get subscription name in Azure PowerShell?

You can efficiently retrieve the Azure subscription name in Azure PowerShell primarily by using the Get-AzSubscription cmdlet. This powerful cmdlet allows you to list all subscriptions that your current Azure account has access to, providing key details including the subscription name.

The Get-AzSubscription Cmdlet

The Get-AzSubscription cmdlet is your primary tool for querying Azure subscription information. It fetches details for all subscriptions accessible by the authenticated account, returning essential properties such as the Subscription ID, the Subscription Name, and the Home Tenant associated with each subscription. This comprehensive output makes it straightforward to identify and manage your Azure environments.

For more details, you can refer to the official documentation for Get-AzSubscription.

Retrieving All Subscription Names

To see the names of all subscriptions your account can access, simply execute the Get-AzSubscription cmdlet:

Get-AzSubscription

This command will output a list of subscriptions, each with its associated properties. The Name property in the output represents the subscription name.

Example Output:

Name                                     Id                                   TenantId                             State
----                                     --                                   --------                             -----
My Development Subscription              xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx yyyyyyyy-yyyy-yyyy-yyyy-yyyyyyyyyyyy Enabled
Production Environment                   zzzzzzzz-zzzz-zzzz-zzzzz-zzzzzzzzzzzz yyyyyyyy-yyyy-yyyy-yyyy-yyyyyyyyyyyy Enabled

Targeting Specific Subscription Names

Often, you might only need the subscription name or wish to extract it for further processing. There are several ways to achieve this:

1. Selecting Only the Name Property

To display only the subscription names, you can pipe the output of Get-AzSubscription to Select-Object and specify the Name property:

Get-AzSubscription | Select-Object Name

This will produce a cleaner output showing only the subscription names.

2. Accessing the Name Property Directly

If you have only one subscription or want to access the name of the first subscription returned, you can directly access the Name property:

(Get-AzSubscription).Name

If multiple subscriptions are returned, this will provide an array of all subscription names. For example, if you want the name of the first subscription:

(Get-AzSubscription)[0].Name

3. Getting the Name of the Currently Active Subscription

When working in Azure PowerShell, you're usually operating within the context of a specific subscription. To find the name of the currently active or selected subscription, use the Get-AzContext cmdlet and access its Subscription.Name property:

(Get-AzContext).Subscription.Name

This is particularly useful when you need to confirm which subscription you are working with before executing commands.

4. Filtering Subscriptions by Name

If you know part of the subscription name or want to find a specific one, you can filter the results:

Get-AzSubscription | Where-Object { $_.Name -like "My Development*" }

This command would retrieve any subscription whose name starts with "My Development".

Understanding Key Subscription Properties

When you run Get-AzSubscription, it provides several important properties. Here's a brief overview of the most relevant ones for identification and management:

Managing Your Active Subscription

Once you've identified a subscription by its name, you can use Set-AzContext to switch your active working context to that subscription, allowing subsequent PowerShell commands to target it:

Set-AzContext -SubscriptionName "My Production Environment"

Or, using the subscription ID:

Set-AzContext -SubscriptionId "zzzzzzzz-zzzz-zzzz-zzzzz-zzzzzzzzzzzz"

By leveraging Get-AzSubscription, you gain full control over identifying and interacting with your Azure subscriptions in PowerShell, making administrative tasks more efficient and precise.