Generate a File
Listing from a Windows Explorer Context Menu
How many times have you been
browsing through directories in Windows Explorer and wished you
could generate a text file or printout listing the files and
folders? It seems like such a simple request that it's amazing the
option isn't available. You don't believe me? Right click on a
folder and see for yourself if there is an option to list or print
the structure. There isn't, but there is a workaround that doesn't
require any third party software. Here's how to create a context
menu item that when clicked will generate an editable text file
listing of the selected directory.
Step 1 - Create A Batch File
To create the entry in the context
menu it's necessary to first create a .bat file. The format for the
.bat file is:
dir /a /-p /o:gen >filelisting.txt
The name of the .txt
file can be whatever you'd like it called. In the example above it's
filelisting, but it could just as easily be filelist, listoffiles,
namedfiles, or even wally if you have a sense of the bizarre. Once
you've decided on the name, create the file in Notepad and save the
file in your Windows folder as shown below. If you want, just copy
and paste the example up above if you don't find wally intriguing.
Fig. 01
Step 2 - Modify The Context Menu
Now that we have the
.bat file created the next step is to make it functional and easily
accessible by integrating it into the context menu that opens when a
right click is executed. To do this:
Open Windows
Explorer, click Tools, then click Folder Options.
Click the File Types tab, and then click Folder.
Click the Advanced button and then click New to pen the New Action
box shown below.
Fig. 02
In the New Action [Fig. 02] box, type the name
that you want to appear in the context menu. Once again, you have a
wide latitude in choices but something akin to Create File Listing
will probably be more useful than naming it Martha Stewart. As you
can see in the example above, I ditched Martha in favor of Create
File Listing. Sorry Martha. Browse to the location where the .bat
file you created is located, select it and let it be the Application
Used to Perform Actions. Click OK and do the standard Windows dance
of Apply and OK again to close all the open windows.
That's it ! Congratulations.
You've created a new item on the context menu that's ready to go to
work. So now that's it there, what can you do with it? Open up
Windows Explorer as I did in the example [Fig. 03] below.
Fig. 03
Navigate to whatever
folder you want to use as the basis for the file list and right
click to open the context menu. Click on the Create File Listing
item and the list will be generated and displayed at the bottom of
the open window as filelisting.txt. The example below was created
from the Sample Music folder shown above. Since it is a text file it
can be fully edited, copied, pasted, printed, etc for any purpose.
Fig. 04
Note: If for any reason you want to
remove the Create File Listing entry from the context menu it will
be necessary to edit the registry. This can be accomplished by
navigating to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Folder\shell\Create_File_Listing
using regedit and deleting the Create_File_Listing key in the left
pane. Close regedit and reboot to complete removal.
Additional File Modifications
Submitted by TEG Readers
The following tip was sent in
containing a very useful modification to the batch file;
Adding the "/b" switch to the proposed
batch file will create a "bare format (no heading
information or summary)" text which makes the output
much easier to copy and manipulate. It eliminates all
the other garbage in the output file.
Best regards,
Geert PauwelsThis is an
excellent idea and very easy to implement. If you are
creating the batch file for the first time just modify
the file listed in the article so it reads;
dir /a /b /-p /o:gen >filelisting.txt
and continue with the
instructions for completing the modification. If the
batch file already exists in C:\Windows, navigate to the
file, right click it and select Edit from the context
menu and modify the file so it contains the /b switch.
Save the changes and close the file. The change will
modify the output so it appears as shown below.
Fig. 05
While it's easy enough to
go into the C:\Windows
directory and edit the batch file to generate the type
of output preferred, depending on how often you change
between the two output formats you may find it more
convenient to create separate entries for each format
that can be selected from the context menu. The
procedure is simple.
-
Create one batch file
using the /b switch and name it filelisting.bat.
-
Create a second batch
file without the /b switch and name it
filelisting1.bat.
-
Save both files in
C:\Windows.
-
Modify the context
menu as shown in Step 2 and Fig. 02 above, but this
time go through the procedure twice and give each
entry a different name in the Action line, assigning
each entry a different batch file. I used the names
"Create File Listing" and "Create File Listing
Verbose" for this example, assigning the batch file
with the /b switch to "Create File Listing" and the
batch file without the /b switch to the "Create File
Listing Verbose" entry.
-
Both entries are now
on the context menu and available for use as shown
in Fig. 06.
Fig. 06
The following
modification was submitted by Antony
Hi,
Thanks for
the tip on generating a directory listing from windows
explorer - this has bugged me for ages.
Just
wanted to add that when I run the command as listed, the
file gets created in the directory that I want a listing
for, but is never displayed automatically (I have to open it
manually). This was annoying so I fixed it by doing the
following:
-
Specifying that the directory listing file always gets
saved in the same location.
-
Using
the Start command to open the file with Notepad.
Here is
the modified batch file.
dir /a /b
/-p /o:gen >C:\Temp\List_Files.txt
start notepad C:\Temp\List_Files.txt
The following modification was
submitted by Max
I have however created a
modification that people should enjoy.
By adding the line cd %1 to the top
of the bat file, you can right click on a folder select Create a
File List, and then the txt file will be saved inside that
folder with a listing of the contents of that folder.
The next modification prevents the
generated textfile from being listed within its self. The two
lines are added under the dir command.
copy "C:\Temporary Location\textfile.txt"
%1
del "C:\Temporary Location\textfile.txt"
Thus, my entire bat file looks like
this:
cd %1
dir /a /b /-p /o:GEN >"C:\Documents and Settings\<your
username>\Local Settings\Temp\filelist.txt"
copy "C:\Documents and Settings\<your username>\Local
Settings\Temp\filelist.txt" %1
del "C:\Documents and Settings\<your username>\Local
Settings\Temp\filelist.txt"
Please remember to use the
quotations...otherwise, dos won't be able to deal with the
spaces.
The following modification was
submitted by Kevin
I've been trying to figure out how to
capture a listing of files from within a folder -- but I don't want
to print the list, just save it to a disc. (I'm sending a buddy a
listing of all of the CD's that I've burned.)
I found your article entitled, "Generate
a File Listing from a Windows Explorer Context Menu"
-- and although none of the solutions worked perfectly for me, I did
some minor editing to give me what I needed.
I needed a batch file which would create a listing, allow me to cut,
copy or print the contents, then delete the file itself (I have no
need for a permanent file listing cluttering up my hard drive).
Here it is:
dir /a /-p /o:gen >filelisting.txt
filelisting.txt
del filelisting.txt
Thanks again for a wonderful site.
Kevin
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