Learn how to view and edit an Active Directory object’s Canonical Name with the options described in this guide.
Option 1: View Canonical Name From ADUC
1. Open Active Directory Users and Computers, click View and select Advanced Features.

- After that, navigate the AD container, where the object is located, right-click the object and select Properties.

- Then, click the Object tab – the Canonical Name is displayed on this tab.
Option 2: View Canonical Name with PowerShell
- Open PowerShell on a computer that has access to a Domain Controller.
- Then, get the object’s distinguishedName by running the command below. The command saves the result in the $distinguishedName variable.
$distinguishedName = (Get-ADObject -Filter {Name -eq 'Anthony Raj'}).DistinguishedName
- Finally, display the objects Canonical Name by running this command:
Get-ADObject -filter {distinguishedname -eq $distinguishedName} -properties canonicalName
The command displayed other properties. To display just the CN, modify the command as shown below.
(Get-ADObject -filter {distinguishedname -eq $distinguishedName} -properties canonicalName).CanonicalName
Conclusion
An AD object’s canonicalName displays the object in the canonical format. This shows the full path of the object in AD, separated by a forward slash (/).
If you need to view this property in Active Directory, you can use ADUC or PowerShell as I have shown in this quick guide.
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