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 ".

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.

Syntax in Windows 10, 8, 7, Vista, XP, and 2000

DIR [Drive:][Path][FileName] [/A[[:]Attributes]] [/B] [/C] [/D] [/L] [/N]
    [/O[[:]SortOrder]] [/P] [/Q] [/R] [/S] [/T[[:]TimeField]] [/W] [/X] [/4]

DIR [Drive:][Path][FileName] [/P] [/W] [/A[[:]attributes]] [/O[[:]sortorder]] [/S]
    [/B] [/L] [/V]

dir

Lists all files and directories in the current directory.

dir *.exe

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

dir *.txt *.doc

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

dir /a:d

Lists only directories.

dir /a:r

List only files with the read-only attribute.

dir /s

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.

dir /p

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

dir /w

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.

dir /s /w /p

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

dir /s /w /p "C:\Program Files"

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.

dir /o:n

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.

dir /o:-n

Lists files in reverse alphabetical order.

dir /s /q /a:sh /p C:\Windows

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).

dir \ /s | find "i" | more

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.

dir > myfile.txt

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.

dir /s /a:hs /q C:\Windows > myfile.txt

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

type myfile.txt

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

type myfile.txt | more