How To Print The List of Files in a Folder on the Mac

Tue, Jul 20, 2010

Tutorials & Tips


Sometimes you just need to print out the list of files in a particular folder. While I was on Windows, sometimes I’d just take a screenshot of the folders’ contents, but when I had to print it out or when the folder’s contents were too much, I had to use a third-party software just to accomplish this.

On the Mac, you have Automator! Automator allows you to get the contents of any folder on your Mac. With the contents, you can save it as a text file so you can print, copy, or do whatever with it.

Here’s 5 easy steps to list your folder contents on a Mac:

  1. Open Automator
  2. Create a new workflow
  3. Drag: Ask for Finder Items (Change “Type” to Folder)
  4. Drag: Get Folder Contents
  5. Drag: New Text File (Choose your filename and location)
  6. Hit “Run”

And voila! Your folder contents are saved to a text file, ready to be used.

Tip: You can search for your actions, e.g. search for “folder”, and you should see the “Get Folder Contents” displayed.

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This post was written by:

- Alvin is a Singaporean who's interested in marketing, techy stuff and likes to just figure out how the two can work with each other. On top of his blog, you can also follow him on Twitter.

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3 Comments For This Post

  1. SelfRighteous Says:

    I don't understand, why couldn't you just ls > destination.txt in terminal?

  2. Alvin Poh Says:

    That's actually a good idea. Argh…I was too caught up with the fancy bells and whistles that I didn't even consider terminal!

  3. gstudio Says:

    Drag the folder onto the printer icon.

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