What you need: Windows 10 or 11
Time required: 45 minutes
When using Command Prompt, have you ever needed to list the contents of a folder or drive? If so, then the DIR command has you covered. At first glance, that’s all it can do – and in a less visually accessible way than File Explorer. But dig a little deeper and you’ll find ways in which DIR can play a more active role: use it to quickly perform file searches, generate file lists you can open and edit in any text editor, and even confirm that your precious files are safe when Windows refuses to load. Here, we’ll explain how to use this powerful tool. Note that whenever we use yourname, you should replace it with your name as it’s registered in your Users folder (it’s ‘nickd’ in our screenshots).
1 Learn the basics of DIR
Open Command Prompt (press Win+R, type cmd and press Enter) to find yourself in your personal user folder – for example, . Type dir ( in our screenshot) and. If there isn't one, you’ll see ‘Volume in drive C has no label’. Below that will be an alphabetical list of the contents of your user folder.
