Recursively list directories in powershell

Question

How do you recursively list directories in Powershell?

I tried dir /S but no luck:

PS C:\Users\snowcrash> dir /S
dir : Cannot find path 'C:\S' because it does not exist.
At line:1 char:1
+ dir /S
+ ~~~~~~
    + CategoryInfo          : ObjectNotFound: (C:\S:String) [Get-ChildItem], ItemNotFoundException
    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : PathNotFound,Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.GetChildItemCommand

get-childitem -recursive -directory, I believe it might not work with ps2 — 4c74356b41, Feb 24 '17 at 14:09
Short equivalents of `dir/s` are `gci -r`, `ls -r`, `dir -r` — wOxxOm, Feb 24 '17 at 14:13
@4c74356b41 It's `-recurse` not recursive. Recurse also has an alias of `-s` so `dir -s` would work. — BenH, Feb 24 '17 at 14:15

score 67 · Answer 1 · answered Feb 24 '17 at 14:14

In PowerShell, dir is an alias for the Get-ChildItem cmdlet.

Use it with the -Recurse parameter to list child items recursively:

Get-ChildItem -Recurse

If you only want directories, and not files, use the -Directory switch:

Get-ChildItem -Recurse -Directory

The -Directory switch is introduced for the file system provider in version 3.0.

For PowerShell 2.0, filter on the PSIsContainer property:

Get-ChildItem -Recurse |Where-Object {$_.PSIsContainer}

(PowerShell aliases support parameter resolution, so in all examples above, Get-ChildItem can be replaced with dir)

Recursively list directories in powershell

1 Answers1