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How Do I Print A File List (finder)

foz405

foz405

macrumors member
Original poster
Jun 24, 2006
70
1
Mount Hutton, Newcastle, NSW, Australia
I'd like to print the file names that are on an external backup so I know what is there. I've opened Finder and the relevant directory, but can't figure out how to print the pane (or file list).

Can anyone help please ? I have Tiger 10.4.10 on a G4 powerbook.
 
In terminal type ls -Rla /Volumes/<your backup volume/ > ~/Desktop/contents_of_backup_volume.txt and replace <your backup volume> with the actual name of the backup partition.

That will give you a text-file on your desktop with lots, and lots of information... thay you may format and print as you like... ;)

You can read up on all the possibilities of the ls command by typing man ls.
 
Well as long as you stay away from the rm, and possibly the mv, command it's very limited what damage you easily can do... but even so, you could try PrintFinder. I've not tried it, and for all I know it could be a man eating trojan for Mac OS X, but if it does what it says it might be right up your alley... :)
 
When I needed to do this I select all the folders/files I want, hit command-C (to copy), open up Word (or your text editor of choice), hit command-V (to paste) and bang-o there's a printable list.


Lethal
 
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foz405 said:
Yes. Thanks. But I'm more than a little worried about the inherent dangers of using "Terminal". They say you can delete stuff really easy, and I'm very accident prone and have deleted whole directories before today.
Click to expand...

ls doesn't do anything other than list the files. unless you're a bad typer and change it to "rm" then there's not really anything to worry about.
 
There's always the following:
(a) arrange the Finder directory listing to show what you want onscreen
(b) cmd-shft-4 - draw a box around the information you want
(c) print the resultant "Picture 1" (.png file) from your desktop, with Preview, or whatever.
 
Hmmm. In Safari, if you drag a folder into this box (the one I'm typing in) it generates the path to that folder, not a list of its contents.
 
print finder search window

Does anyone know how to print the results of a search of the desktop on Max OS 10.6.8?
Copy and paste doesn't work, and neither did Print Window.
 
erblaser said:
Does anyone know how to print the results of a search of the desktop on Max OS 10.6.8?
Copy and paste doesn't work, and neither did Print Window.
Click to expand...

I don't think there is a way to do it from spotlight, but you can use the mdfind command from terminal and redirect to a file, then print that file. For example:

mdfind search_string >outfile.txt
 
Thanks very much. That terminal command produces a list which can easily be cleaned up in a word processor for later printing.
 
LethalWolfe said:
When I needed to do this I select all the folders/files I want, hit command-C (to copy), open up Word (or your text editor of choice), hit command-V (to paste) and bang-o there's a printable list.


Lethal
Click to expand...
when I do this, I get all the contents of all the files.
How to get just a list of the file names?
 
LethalWolfe said:
When I needed to do this I select all the folders/files I want, hit command-C (to copy), open up Word (or your text editor of choice), hit command-V (to paste) and bang-o there's a printable list.
Click to expand...
Charlotte Katz said:
when I do this, I get all the contents of all the files.
How to get just a list of the file names?
Click to expand...
Use a text editor (like TextWrangler) and not a word processor (like Pages)

If you use TextEdit (which is both) then make sure the document is set to Plain Text first.
 
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