Generate a File Listing from a Windows Explorer Context Menu
May 28th, 2008I finally caught up to remedying this annoyance………………..
Generate a File Listing from a Windows Explorer Context Menu
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.