Do you have a folder or directory in Windows that you want to print the contents of? There are many reasons why people want these printed. You won’t get what’s inside each file printed; you will get the file name printed. You might have heaps of songs in a folder or important documents that you want to store in a list, preferably in order.

About the only obvious thing to do without a proper guide would be to hold the print Screen key + Ctrl + C and take a screenshot of what you see on the screen. The problem with that idea is you can’t see the full contents of the folder on the display if your folder contains a number of items. Here’s a way you can save a complete list running Windows 10, Windows 8.1, Windows 8, and Windows 7 operating systems.

The following tutorial demonstrates how you print the contents of a folder or directory when you’re running on Windows 10, Windows 8.1, Windows 7 and Windows 7.

How to Print File Names in a Folder in Windows 10, 8.1, 8, and Windows 7

1. Navigate to Windows Explorer or File Explorer (depending on your Windows version).

2. Locate and open the folder you want to print the list for.

3. You should now have the contents of that folder on your computer’s display. It doesn’t matter if you cannot see all the list at this point.

4. Move the mouse to an empty white space within that folder, hold down Shift on the keyboard and right-click the mouse. You should get a new menu popping up on the display.

5. One of the options from the menu is Open new command windows here. Click that option and open the command line.

Those who do not use Windows all that much on the technical side might not be used to using the command line. While it looks like something from the 80’s, it is still the place where techie’s execute many commands.

6. Type the command: dir > List.txt and press Enter on the keyboard.

7. Now look inside the folder for a new file that has just been created. This is called a text file (.txt).

8. Open the text file to view the full list of files you have within the folder.

9. Those of you wanting to print can do so by turning on the printer and choosing print from the toolbar on the computer. Do that by navigating to File > Print.

Alternatively, you can navigate to File > Save As > Give the text file a name and save it so you can keep the list on the computer.

That’s all.

In conclusion, that is all you need to know how to print the contents of a directory or a folder when your computer is running on a version of the Windows 10, Windows 8 or Windows 7 operating system. The guide should work for all versions up until the time of writing this article. If you are running a newer version of Windows 10 such as the Anniversary update, then Microsoft might have changed how it is done.

This article was last updated on May 5, 2019.

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