How to select or highlight multiple files and folders

When working with Microsoft Windows, macOS, (or any operating system with a GUI), you may want to select multiple files to copy, delete, or move them all at once. The following sections describe different methods of selecting multiple files or folders.

Select all the files or folders in the current directory

«Select all» with shortcut keys

In most operating systems and programs, the shortcut key Ctrl + A ( Command + A on macOS) selects all available text in the current text area, or all files in a file navigator window.

«Select all» using menus

In Windows 8 or Windows 10, the File/Edit/View menu is not available in File Explorer. Use Ctrl + A instead.

1. Open a folder or directory in File Explorer or My Computer.
2. Click Edit in the menu bar at the top of the window.
3. Click Select All on the drop-down menu.

Once the files or folders are highlighted, right-click one of the highlighted files or folders to view available options to cut, copy, or delete. For additional help and information, see the below section on what can be done after the files or folders are highlighted.

Mouse drag and select multiple files or folders

You can click-and-drag a box around the files or folders you want to select. Doing so selects all files and folders within that box, as shown in the animated picture.

To do this, click and hold your left mouse button on the top-left portion of where you want to start highlighting. Next, drag the box until the last file or folder is highlighted. Once the files are selected, they can be copied, cut, or dragged to another window to move them. They can also be dragged to the Trash/Recycle Bin to be deleted.

Once the files or folders are highlighted, right-click one of the highlighted files or folders to view available options, including cut, copy, or delete. For additional help and information, see the below section on what can be done after the files or folders are highlighted.

Select multiple files or folders grouped together

1. Click the first file or folder, and then press and hold the Shift key.
2. While holding Shift , click the last file or folder.

See the other tips section on how you can select grouped and non-grouped files or folders at the same time.

Once the files or folders are highlighted, right-click one of the highlighted files or folders to view available options to cut, copy, or delete. For additional help and information, see the below section on what can be done after the files or folders are highlighted.

Select multiple files or folders that are not grouped together

1. Click the first file or folder, and then press and hold the Ctrl key.
2. While holding Ctrl , click each of the other files or folders you want to select.

See the other tips section on how you can select grouped and non-grouped files at the same time.

Once the files or folders are highlighted, right-click one of the highlighted files or folders to view available options to cut, copy, or delete. For additional help and information, see the below section on what can be done after the files or folders are highlighted.

How to select without using the mouse

1. Press Windows key + E to open File Explorer.
2. Press Tab until you’re in the section of the window containing the files or folders you want to select.
3. Use the arrow keys to move to the file or folder you want to select.
4. You can select more than one file or folder by holding down the Shift key and use the arrow keys highlight them.

Once the files or folders are highlighted, press the shortcut key Ctrl + X to cut or Ctrl + C to copy, or press the Delete key to delete. For additional help and information, see the below section on what can be done after the files or folders are highlighted.

Other tips

You can use a combination of selecting multiple files or folders and single files or folders at the same time by following the steps below.

1. Click the first file or folder you want to select.
2. Hold down the Shift key, select the last file or folder, and then let go of the Shift key.
3. Hold down the Ctrl key and click any other file(s) or folder(s) you would like to add to those already selected.

Holding Ctrl and clicking a file or folder a second time deselects the file or folder.

What can be done once the files or folders are highlighted?

After the files or folders are highlighted, they can be copied, moved, deleted, or compressed into a single archive file.

Command to list all files in a folder as well as sub-folders in windows

I tried searching for a command that could list all the file in a directory as well as subfolders using a command prompt command. I have read the help for «dir» command but coudn’t find what I was looking for. Please help me what command could get this.

6 Answers 6

The below post gives the solution for your scenario.

/S Displays files in specified directory and all subdirectories.

/B Uses bare format (no heading information or summary).

/O List by files in sorted order.

If you want to list folders and files like graphical directory tree, you should use tree command.

There are various options for display format or ordering.

Check example output.

Answering late. Hope it help someone.

An addition to the answer: when you do not want to list the folders, only the files in the subfolders, use /A-D switch like this:

An alternative to the above commands that is a little more bulletproof.

It can list all files irrespective of permissions or path length.

I have a slight issue with the use of C:\NULL which I have written about in my blog

But nevertheless it’s the most robust command I know.

If you simply need to get the basic snapshot of the files + folders. Follow these baby steps:

• Press Windows + R
• Press Enter
• Type cmd
• Press Enter
• Type dir -s
• Press Enter

Following commands we can use for Linux or Mac. For Windows we can use below on git bash.

List all files, first level folders, and their contents

List all first-level subdirectories and files

List files with path and file size only in Command Line

Windows Command Line (or maybe PowerShell).

How can I list all files, recursively, with full path and filesize, but without anything else and export to a .txt file. Much preferably a code that works for whichever current directory I am in with the Command Line (so does not require manual entering of the target directory).

None of these provides path\filename and filesize only:

Desired output (fullpath\file.ext filesize):

6 Answers 6

earlier PowerShell versions:

zA) > filelist.txt – user3026965 May 11 ’17 at 20:55

zA) > filelist.txt does not perform in large subdir trees. tried 1 TB/100K files, kept running for hours until i terminated with ctrl c. still works on small dir trees. – user3026965 May 12 ’17 at 4:56

zA >>filelist.txt – user6811411 May 12 ’17 at 7:08

OP’s chosen answer using PowerShell (and their comment that they used Get-ChildItem -Recurse | select Length,LastWriteTime,FullName | Format-Table -Wrap -AutoSize | Out-File filelist.txt ) was almost what I wanted for processing in Excel. Thanks for that part.

Unfortunately, (as they mentioned) the output had wrapped lines for long file paths, which isn’t quite what I wanted.

The following command will produce a CSV formatted file (no wrapped lines):

The following removes the wrapping issue you have:

Programmatically select multiple files in windows explorer

I can display and select a single file in windows explorer like this:

However, I can’t work out how to select more than one file. None of the permutations of select I’ve tried work.

Note: I looked at these pages for docs, neither helped.

8 Answers 8

This should be possible with the shell function SHOpenFolderAndSelectItems

EDIT

Here is some sample code showing how to use the function in C/C++, without error checking:

The true way of selecting multiple files in Explorer is the next

Unmanaged code looks like this (compiled from China code posts with fixing its bugs)

it cannot be done through explorer.exe

Depending on what you actually want to accomplish you may be able to do it with AutoHotKey. It is an amazing free tool for automating things you normally can’t do. It should come with Windows. This script will select your file and highlight the next two files below it when you hit F12.

It is also possible to just put those two middle lines in a text file and then pass it is a parm to autohotkey.exe. They have an option to compile the script also, which would make it a standalone exe that you could call. Works great with a great help file.

@Orion, It is possible to use autohotkey from C#. You can make an autohotkey script into a standalone executable (about 400k) that can be launched by your C# app (just the way you are launching explorer). You can also pass it command line parameters. It does not have any runtime requirements.

This is one of those questions where it may be good to consider what you’re trying to achieve, and whether there’s a better method.

To add some more context — Our company develops a C# client application, which allows users to load files and do stuff with them, kind of like how iTunes manages your MP3 files without showing you the actual file on disk.

It’s useful to select a file in the application, and do a ‘Show me this file in Windows Explorer` command — this is what I’m trying to achieve, and have done so for single files.

We have a ListView which allows users to select multiple files within the application, and move/delete/etc them. It would be nice to have this ‘show me this file in windows’ command work for multiple selected files — at least if all the source files are in the same directory, but if it’s not possible then it’s not a major feature.

How to print list of Files in a Folder in Windows 10

If you ever need to print a list of files in a folder on your Windows 10/8/7 computer, here are a few ways you can do it. You can use the Command Prompt, Paint or a free software.

Print list of files in a folder in Windows 10

You can use any of the following methods to print a list of Files in a Folder in Windows 10.

1. Run the Dir List command
2. Use Paint software
3. Use a freeware.

Let us see these methods in detail.

1] Using Command Prompt

Open the folder whose list of contents you want to print. Hold down Shift and right-click to open the hidden context menu items. You will see Open command window here. Click on it to open a command prompt window.

Else simply type CMD in the address bar and hit Enter to open the command prompt window there.

In the CMD type the following and press Enter:

A notepad text file will be immediately created in this folder. Open List.txt, and you will be able to see the list of the files in this folder.

Alternatively, you could also use the cd/ command to change the directory from the User directory to Downloads directory as follows:

2] Using Paint

Open the directory whos contents list you want to print. Select the Lists view. Press Alt+PrntScr. Next, open the built-in Paint application. Click Ctrl+V to copy-paste the contents of the clipboard here.

Now from the File menu of Paint select Print.

3] Use a freeware

You can print the name of every file on a drive, along with the file’s size, date and time of last modification, and attributes, Read-Only, Hidden, System, and Archive, with Karen’s Directory Printer. You can also sort the list of files by name, size, date created, date last modified, or date of last access. You can download it from its home page.

A) Simple File Lister does the function of DIR command for Windows OS to get a list of files in a directory and save them with their attributes to the user, in chosen .TSV, .CSV or .TXT formats, which you can then print. You can also select the File Attributes to be printed.

B) InDeep File List Maker lets you create and print a list of files in your folders, drives, and even in your DVDs/CDs.

D) Startup Discoverer is a portable freeware application, which lists start-up file & program locations and allows you to save and print them.