List all files from folders and subfolders in Windows Server 2003 and export it to notepad

I have a server that has over 600 GB of data on one of the drives.

I need to list all the files from the folders and subfolders and export that to notepad or to Excel.

4 Answers

Quick and dirty in PowerShell:

C:\> dir -recurse | out-file X:\pathtofile.txt

This will output something similar to this:

 Directory: E:\Kodak\3500\PDFs\index\parts Mode LastWriteTime Length Name ---- ------------- ------ ---- -a--- 8/10/2002 4:18 a.m. 40960 00000005.ddd -a--- 26/09/2002 7:55 a.m. 446464 00000005.did -a--- 8/10/2002 4:18 a.m. 0 00000005.mrg -a--- 8/10/2002 4:18 a.m. 17408 00000006.ddd -a--- 5/10/2002 3:19 a.m. 221184 00000006.did -a--- 8/10/2002 4:18 a.m. 0 00000006.mrg -a--- 8/10/2002 4:18 a.m. 17408 00000007.ddd -a--- 8/10/2002 3:48 a.m. 102400 00000007.did -a--- 8/10/2002 4:18 a.m. 0 00000007.mrg -a--- 8/10/2002 4:18 a.m. 16384 00000008.ddd -a--- 8/10/2002 4:18 a.m. 32768 00000008.did -a--- 8/10/2002 4:18 a.m. 0 00000008.mrg -a--- 8/10/2002 4:20 a.m. 52224 00000009.ddd -a--- 8/10/2002 4:18 a.m. 641024 00000009.did 

If you add -name to the command somewhere after dir but before the | then you get the following:

PDFs\index\parts\00000005.ddd PDFs\index\parts\00000005.did PDFs\index\parts\00000005.mrg PDFs\index\parts\00000006.ddd PDFs\index\parts\00000006.did PDFs\index\parts\00000006.mrg PDFs\index\parts\00000007.ddd PDFs\index\parts\00000007.did PDFs\index\parts\00000007.mrg PDFs\index\parts\00000008.ddd PDFs\index\parts\00000008.did PDFs\index\parts\00000008.mrg PDFs\index\parts\00000009.ddd PDFs\index\parts\00000009.did 

You may also want to include a -force after the -recurse as this will show Hidden and System files as well.

Be warned, this file will be large. I ran this against the C:\ of my work computer and it generated a 45MB txt file. That's excluding all the folders my user account doesn't have access to.

I need to list all files from folders and subfolders and export to notepad or Excel.

From the command line:

dir /a /s /b > filelist.txt 

• /a Show all files

• /s Include all subfolders.

• /b Bare format (no heading, file sizes or summary)

Open filelist.txt in notepad++ or excel.

Further Reading

• An A-Z Index of the Windows CMD command line - An excellent reference for all things Windows cmd line related.
• dir - Display a list of files and subfolders.

You can this PowerShell script which will list down all the folders subfolders and files and write it to csv file.

$rootPath = "D:\data" $getFilesfromRootDirectory = Get-ChildItem -Path $rootPath | %{$_.FullName} $csvFilename = "D:\Output\outputs.csv" #Output will be written to csv file function get_files_under_folders($value) { $getFiles = Get-ChildItem -Path $value | %{$_.FullName} foreach ($value in $getFiles) { if(checkFileorFolder($value)) { echo "$value" >> $csvFilename Write-Host $value get_files_under_folders($value) } else { Write-Host $value echo "$value" >> $csvFilename } } } function checkFileorFolder($value) { $CheckFile = Test-Path -Path $value -PathType Container return $CheckFile } foreach($value in $getFilesfromRootDirectory) { if(checkFileorFolder($value)) { Write-Host $value get_files_under_folders($value) } else { Write-Host $value echo "$value" >> $csvFilename } } 

DavidPostill answer is quite perfect, but I would like to add something to make it more easy.

Copy this to notepad:

dir /a /s /b > filelist.txt

Save that into folder which file names you want collect with .bat extension aka File > Save As > All Files > WHATEVER.bat

You can just save it in one place and then copy/paste it to folder where needed

/a Show all files

/s Include all subfolders.

/b Bare format (no heading, file sizes or summary)

Open filelist.txt

• one question related to this. How to exclude files with specific extensions ?

.