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 ?

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