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

Question

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.

Answer 1

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.

Answer 2

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.

Answer 3

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
 }
}

Answer 4

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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