Displaying All the Files in a Folder using the Command Prompt

Written by Barry Dysert (last updated April 19, 2021)

You probably already know that you can navigate through folders and view their contents by using the Windows Explorer. Another way to display all the files a folder contains is by using the Command Prompt window. (Accessing the Command Prompt window is covered in this tip.)

At the command prompt, you can navigate through the folders and subfolders by using the CD command to change your current directory. Just follow the command by a space and the name of the directory you want to change to. If the directory name contains spaces, simply surround the directory name with quote marks, as shown in these examples:

CD "my files"
CD "c:/my data/word documents/budgeting"

After navigating to the directory using the CD command, you can see what files are contained in the directory by typing the DIR command at the command prompt.

This tip (12033) applies to Windows 7, 8, and 10.

Author Bio

Barry Dysert

Barry has been a computer professional for over 35 years, working in different positions such as technical team leader, project manager, and software developer. He is currently a software engineer with an emphasis on developing custom applications under Microsoft Windows. When not working with Windows or writing Tips, Barry is an amateur writer. His first non-fiction book is titled "A Chronological Commentary of Revelation." Learn more about Barry...

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2021-06-28 08:07:47

Len Richards

You always leave out some way to do something ... it is because you don't know about it

DIR /B "MY FILES" ==== DISPLAYS THE FILES

no need for your long version of doing something then using cd command to get somewhere else ... c'mon man, do some learning about Windows

2021-04-19 15:42:27

Tomek

@Barry: You forgot to mention that you have to make sure that the directory you want is on the current drive.
If you issue a command "cd E:\MyFiles" but you current drive is C:, the command "dir" will still show files from current directory od drive C:.