Print a list of the whole file directory

Judo said:

I'm looking for an easy way to create a list of every file on a hard drive, and create a .pdf of it in OSX.
It would be good to be able to omit some folders from this list as well.

I've had a look around but have not been able to find anything to help me.
Any ideas anyone?

Click to expand...

I'm no UNIX expert, but I'm fairly certain you can do this easily via the terminal. Study up on some terminal commands.

And just out of curiosity: why, if you don't mind me asking? A list of every file would be HUGE.

When you click on your HD icon from your desktop, depending on how you
have your view preferences set, you'll either see folders or a list or column view

Click the middle VIEW button and you'll get a list of all your main folders and sub folders.

Is this what you were trying to print to pdf?

Please be careful and don't just go moving files around if you don't know where they belong.

OS9 had this... I don't believe it made its way to OSX yet.

try typing

ls /*

I am not sure if this will get all of the folders within folders though just all of the directories and the files in the root directory

anyone figure this out?

to save it as a file just do this though

ls /* > filename ~ the tilde is the directory you want to save the file in


hope this helps somewhat or at least provides a starting point

in the terminal type

find /

will list everything

find / -type f

will list just files. change f to a d to find just directories.

find / -type f > allfiles.txt

will save it in a text file called allfiles.txt

man find

will tell you more about the find command

There's no utility like the Windows OS's "Folder Printer" for the Mac?

MacLustre said:

There's no utility like the Windows OS's "Folder Printer" for the Mac?

Click to expand...

Not directly.. but you can use the UNIX commands or automator. The question here is why..? But each to their own..

I'm not sure why one would want a list of ALL files, but I could see a list of all files in a particular directory, such as movies or something.

Another way

This is a bit of a basic approach but its easy and doesnt need terminal.

What you do is, in the Finder, Open up any subfolders you need to see the file list within. Then uses "command A" to select all.

Open 'MSWord' or 'Pages' or 'Text Edit' to a new blank document.

In MS word choose 'edit' then 'paste special' then in the dialog box choose 'unformatted' text. This wil paste in the text of the directory structure.

In Pages or Text edit, choose edit then "paste and match style"

You might want to indent the folders and files to reflect a hierarchy. This works OK if the directory listing is not massive or contains many sub levels.

Woks fine in In OSX 10.6.4 (and probably in most recent revisions)

Open Terminal, type the following:

ls -R > everyfile.txt

....this will be long.

toasted ICT said:

This is a bit of a basic approach but its easy and doesnt need terminal.
What you do is, in the Finder, Open up any subfolders you need to see the file list within. Then uses "command A" to select all.
Open 'MSWord' or 'Pages' or 'Text Edit' to a new blank document.
In MS word choose 'edit' then 'paste special' then in the dialog box choose 'unformatted' text. This wil paste in the text of the directory structure.
In Pages or Text edit, choose edit then "paste and match style"
You might want to indent the folders and files to reflect a hierarchy. This works OK if the directory listing is not massive or contains many sub levels.
Woks fine in In OSX 10.6.4 (and probably in most recent revisions)

Click to expand...

OK, but this only copies the file NAMES, not Modification Date or size.

Thankful for those who post solutions in MacRumors!

3. Judo's issue(s) was resolved.
2. toasted_ICT's solution worked well for what I was needing.
1. Thanks to all of you who aim to help others on this forum!

JUST what I was looking for! Many thanks.

toasted ICT said:

This is a bit of a basic approach but its easy and doesnt need terminal.

What you do is, in the Finder, Open up any subfolders you need to see the file list within. Then uses "command A" to select all.

Open 'MSWord' or 'Pages' or 'Text Edit' to a new blank document.

In MS word choose 'edit' then 'paste special' then in the dialog box choose 'unformatted' text. This wil paste in the text of the directory structure.

In Pages or Text edit, choose edit then "paste and match style"

You might want to indent the folders and files to reflect a hierarchy. This works OK if the directory listing is not massive or contains many sub levels.

Woks fine in In OSX 10.6.4 (and probably in most recent revisions)

Click to expand...

"I'm looking for an easy way to create a list of every file on a hard drive, and create a .pdf of it in OSX."

Are you really REALLY sure that you want to do this?

Do you know how many files make up a typical installation of OS X?

We're talking in the neighborhood of 200,000+. You may actually have more than that.

Do you really want to create a pdf with a quarter of a million entries?

I've recently revisited this problem and re-discovered this great little app: http://www.printwindowapp.com/

It does a much better job than Mac's built-in flat list output. Handles sub-directories.