List Files and Subfolders With the VBScript FileSystemObject

Scripts are (usually) small interpreted (meaning they don't get compiled) programs that you can write using a simple text editor like Windows Notepad. VBScript stands for "Visual Basic Script", which means it's written in Microsoft's easy to understand Visual Basic language. The scripts are interpreted and executed by a program called the "Windows Scripting Host", (WSH) which is installed on Windows computers by default.

It's easy to run a VBScript in the WSH, all you have to do is give the text file containing the code a the .vbs file extension, then double-click on the file name. When you run a VBScript it has access to the VBScript runtime objects.

To access the computer's file system, you must create a FileSystemObject with the CreateObject method:

Set fsObj = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")

With the FileSystemObject you can you can get the current folder property:

Set fldr = fsObj.GetFolder(".")

From the folder property, you can get the folders subfolders collection:

Set subfldrs = fldr.SubFolders

And, from the folder property, you can get the folders files collection:

Set fls = fldr.Files

With a For Each Next loop, you can loop through all the subfolders in the folder:

For Each subfldr in subfldrs
  ls = ls & "[" & subfldr.name & "]" & chr(13) & Chr(10)
Next

And, with a For Each Next loop, you can loop through all the files in the folder:

For Each fl in fls
  ls = ls & fl.name & chr(13) & Chr(10)
Next

In each loop the ls variable (or Dim as they call it Basic) is a text string that we copy all the folder and file names to. Then we open a text file named "dirlist.txt", write the string to the file, and then close the text file.

Set tf = fsObj.OpenTextFile("dirlist.txt", 2, True, True)
tf.WriteLine ls
tf.Close

Shown below is a complete script that you can use to list folders and files in the same folder in which you place the script:

Dim fsObj, fldr, subfldr, fls, ls, fl, tf

Set fsObj = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
Set fldr = fsObj.GetFolder(".")

'get subfolders collection
Set subfldrs = fldr.SubFolders

'get files collection
Set fls = fldr.Files

ls = ""
For Each subfldr in subfldrs
  ls = ls & "[" & subfldr.name & "]" & chr(13) & Chr(10)
Next

For Each fl in fls
  ls = ls & fl.name & chr(13) & Chr(10)
Next

Set tf = fsObj.OpenTextFile("dirlist.txt", 2, True, True)
tf.WriteLine ls

tf.Close
Set fsObj = Nothing

To use the script, copy and paste the code above into a text file and save it with a file name with the extension .vbs. When you double-click on the filename to execute the script, it will write the file "dirlist.txt" containing a list of the folders and files in the same folder.

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