Which command is used to display all the files in your current directory and its?

Updated: 12/30/2021 by

The dir command displays information about files and directories, and how much disk space is available. By default, it displays the name, size, and last modification time of every file in the current directory.

Availability

Dir is an internal command available in the command line of all Microsoft operating systems.

• All Versions of MS-DOS
• Windows 95
• Windows 98
• Windows ME
• Windows NT
• Windows 2000
• Windows XP
• Windows Vista
• Windows 7
• Windows 8
• Windows 10
• Windows 11

Description

The dir command displays a list of files and subdirectories in a directory. With the /S option, it recurses subdirectories and lists their contents as well.

Options listed below may be preset in the DIRCMD environment variable. To override preset options, prefix any switch with - (hyphen), for example, "/-W".

Syntax

The syntax of the dir command has evolved somewhat over time. Select your operating system to jump to the information that applies to your version.

• Windows 11, 10, 8, 7, Vista, XP, and 2000 syntax.
• Windows ME, 98, 95, 3.x, and MS-DOS syntax.

Windows 11, 10, 8, 7, Vista, XP, and 2000 syntax

Windows ME, 98, 95, 3.x, and MS-DOS syntax

Examples

Lists all files and directories in the current directory.

Lists any file whose name has the file extension ".exe".

Note

Because of how the wildcard matching works, it's also shows files with a file extension with four or more characters (e.g., .exec).

List any files whose name has the file extension ".txt" or ".doc".

Lists only directories.

List only files with the read-only attribute.

Recursively lists files and directories in the directory, and in any subdirectories. For instance, if your current directory is the root directory "C:\>," this command lists every file and directory on the C: drive.

Pause after each screenful of output. Use this option if the information is scrolling past the screen before you can read it. You are prompted to press any key before listing continues past the current screen.

Lists multiple file names on every line, producing "wide" output, which displays more file names at once. However, other information such as file size is omitted.

Recursively lists all files and directories in the current directory and any subdirectories, in wide format, pausing after each screen of output.

Same as the above command, but lists everything in C:\Program Files, instead of the current directory. Because the directory name contains a space, it is enclosed in double-quotes, to prevent it from being interpreted is as two separate options.

Lists files and directories in the current directory in alphabetical order. This example is the same as only running dir because files and directories are listed in alphabetical order by default.

Lists files in reverse alphabetical order.

Lists any files and directories in C:\Windows, and any of its subdirectories (/s), which have both the "hidden" and "system" file attributes (/a:sh). Also, lists the owner of the file (/q), and pauses after each screen of output (/p).

The above command uses vertical bars to pipe the output from dir to the command find, and then to the command more. The result is a list of all files and directories in the root directory of the current drive (\), with extra information. Namely, find also displays the number of files in each directory, and the amount of space occupied by each.

Runs the dir command, but redirects the output to the file myfile.txt, instead of displaying it on the screen. Here, the dir command has no options, but redirection works with any command you specify, so the following command also works.

To view the contents of the file, you can use the type command.

If the file is very long, you can pipe type to more, so it pauses after each screen.