Filter directory tree by file type?

[JennyB]

You know how the Open File dialog can show only files matching a particular type? As soon as you go up the tree it displays all the directories and you have to open them to see if they contain anything relevant.

Is there any program that can take a file type and return a list of directories that contain files of that type?

[AndyM]

TaskTracker

http://tasktracker.wordwisesolutions.com/

[Renegade]

TaskTracker

http://tasktracker.wordwisesolutions.com/

Is it freeware? I don't see any license or purchase info.

[4wd]

Nope: Registration

I'd just use Everything and type in the path and/or filter.

[hpearce]

some file managers have a display view called FLAT VIEW that will display all folders and files in one lister like DOPUS.

[tomos]

some file managers have a display view called FLAT VIEW that will display all folders and files in one lister like DOPUS.

in dopus you can also filter the list to only show certain filetypes (or names)

[sajman99]

In addition to search tools and file mangers, some system profilers could help out.

For example, WinDirStat displays file types. I know there are many more I'm not recalling at the moment.

[MilesAhead]

FreeCommander has a filter but it's only for the current folder. It won't remove folders from the tree. I think the reason they don't is it's slow. FreeCommander has a Toolbar Icon to show folder sizes. It's off by default because recursively descending through the folder tree is slow. Essentially you are doing a FindFirstFile..FindNextFile processing of every file on the drive.  On the system partition that's easily several hundred thousand files.

Just open a command prompt to C:> and do
dir /s

command and watch it go on for minutes.

edit: just for chuckles I ran it on my Vista64 machine.  Took about 3 min 24 sec and listed over 215,000 files.


Might be a nice idea for a tool that does indexing though. Especially if the tree didn't get changed that often.  Like some data storage without a lot of deletions.

[AndyM]

TaskTracker

http://tasktracker.wordwisesolutions.com/

Is it freeware? I don't see any license or purchase info.

No, it's $30.  At least I think that's what the cost is after clicking 5 or so links.

I used TaskTracker for several years and it worked well and served a real purpose for me.  Things changed and I didn't move it to my new machine.  I don't think I paid anywhere near $30 for it.  If I needed it again I'd look for a cheaper way first.

It doesn't work inside the Open/Save dialogs, but it does group file types across your directory tree.  It does that well.

[JennyB]

Nope: Registration

I'd just use Everything and type in the path and/or filter.

That's FAST!!!  And it will do for what I need. Thanks! 

[4wd]

That's FAST!!!  And it will do for what I need. Thanks! 

No problem, there's a later version that's beta on the forum here, (it's been out a year and has been stable here), which adds a few things, (eg. recent change filters, better Safe Removal support, etc).

If you enable the Shell context menu, then it will restrict itself to the chosen path including sub-directories without you having to type them in.

[Curt]

Is there any program that can take a file type and return a list of directories that contain files of that type?

Except for all the special programs already mentioned, I will like to remind you that Explorer does this per default. Just type .TheFiletype in Explorer's search box, when you are in a top directory, and the result will include all relevant files in every sub-folder in that directory. The speed of the result depends on whether you have indexing turned on or off.

[MilesAhead]

Is there any program that can take a file type and return a list of directories that contain files of that type?

Except for all the special programs already mentioned, I will like to remind you that Explorer does this per default. Just type .TheFiletype in Explorer's search box, when you are in a top directory, and the result will include all relevant files in every sub-folder in that directory. The speed of the result depends on whether you have indexing turned on or off.

I never thought to try that.  Here's a weirdy though. I typed in .txt in the Address Bar by mistake and it opened a tab in Chromium telling me it could not find the web site!!!  heh heh heh

When I used the search with .txt it found the text files though.

[DonL]

XYplorer 10.60 will come with a Flat View that can be filtered (wildcards patterns, Boolean logic, RegExp), level-indented, and sorted in a tree-like sort order. In other words, it comes with a directory tree filtered by file type. That's why I revived this old topic.