How to print a list of files in a Windows directory

Posted on May 1, 2008 at 5:20 am

Have you ever had the situation where you needed to print a list of all of the files in a folder? That might not be too hard to manually handle if you have a just a few files, but what if you have hundreds of files all with strange and complicated names? On top of that, what if you wanted to print a list of all files in a directory and all sub-directories of that directory?

Well that’s not an easy task without some freeware Windows utilities. You can also capture a screenshot, but that’s not useful if someone needs the list in Excel or as a text file. And a screen shot usually doesn’t look as nice as printing a text file.

No worries! You can use Karen’s Directory Printer to print out the entire directory tree structure with as many file attributes as you want, including fields like date created, date last modified, file size, file name, folder name, and lots more!

I love this program because it has a crap load of options that make it the only program you will ever need to print lists of files in directories.

directory printer

Pick your folder and choose whether you want to print file names only, folder names only, or both. You can also tell it to search sub folders and print them out also.

Clicking on the Show Network checkbox will allow you to see all network drives and shares and print out their structures too! Great for office networks that have folder shares on servers.

You can also sort by file name, file extension, file size, date created, date modified and more. You can also put a file filter so that only certain types of files are printed, such as images only, sound files, executables, documents, etc.

print directory list

Finally, you can choose from a large number of attributes that you want to include in your file print list:

print file in directory

Finally, one other great feature of the program is that it adds an option to your Explorer context menu so that you can simply right-click on any folder and choose “Print with DirPrn“.

print with dirprin

Overall, it’s a useful application in certain situations. I’ve personally used it a couple of times and it’s been the absolute perfect tool. On other thing to note, there are two tabs that do the same thing, Print and Save To Disk, except that the latter allows you to save the list out as a text file. Enjoy!

[tags]print file directory, print directory to file, print files in directory, print list of files in directory, print all files in a directory, print a list of files in a directory[/tags]

» Filed Under Computer Tips

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Comments

19 Responses to “How to print a list of files in a Windows directory”

  1. Madhur Kapoor said on :

    This will be useful in my project work.


  2. akishore said on :

    Madhur, it’s been very useful for me! I guess because I work in IT, I always seem to be needing to print out a list of all files on a network share! Glad it helped you too!


  3. Ajay said on :

    this would be very use ful in my project also. most of time i write all files in a word file and then take a print of all file names .
    tahnks


  4. Gururaj said on :

    Karen’s applications are all great but does one really need a full-blown application just to print a list of files? If you need a list of files in your folder “december”:
    1) Type cmd and hit Enter after you click RUN from the Start Menu
    2) Type cd c:\december
    3) Type dir > filelist.txt
    That should give you a detailed list of files.


  5. akishore said on :

    Hi Gururaj, you’re absolutely correct! It’s overkill, but I think the programs come in handy in that you don’t have to know DOS commands, which very few people know unless they are technically savvy.

    You and me might be able to do this, but others will have no clue, so I guess that’s the only reason for them.


  6. Nirmal said on :

    Great find Aseem, I have encountered this situation for my office work I had to print lot of documents and I had to do it manually one by one. I’ll try this one.


  7. akishore said on :

    Nirmal, yeah it’s very useful at the office! Simple, yet useful software.


  8. Haris said on :

    Looks useful. Will give it a try.


  9. Jerry Tienter said on :

    This is GREAT!. Thanks Karen.


  10. peris said on :

    this is such an amazing little program. wow!


  11. Anna said on :

    anything that makes life easier is fantastic…forget the DOS commands for the general “Joe” I will certainly use this – thanks Karen


  12. J. P. said on :

    wow!!!!!!!!!
    this allows me to print a list of 25,000 karaoke songs with ease!
    Whoever made this program I f’in love you!
    I dont have to use print screen 200 times to print out my list anymore. Thanks times infinty


  13. Allan said on :

    Try Directory Report
    http://www.file-utilities.com

    It can print files plus many file attributes


  14. babaluch said on :

    Thanks, as guruj says, it’s simple, BUT this is great to do what I need to. When I burn files to CD/DCD I print the simple directory listing on the CD/DVD without the extraneous info. Voila!!
    Thanks Karen. When one searches for directory printing applets it’s clear that there is a use and a demand for this.


  15. Elizabeth said on :

    Try wList (Make a list of files and folders)

    http://sharktime.com/us_wList.html

    Unlike other tools, all national and international characters inside file names are saved correctly.
    It supports Unicode.
    wList has great search filtering capabilities.

    Regards,
    E.


  16. Peter said on :

    In addition to Gururaj’s suggestion, try:

    e:> dir /S > listing.log

    for a recursive directory listing.


  17. Bhupendra said on :

    Wow, this is exactly what I’ve been looking for. The DOS way also works, but this has so many more options. Thanks. This will save me so much time printing all the files names in a directory!


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