Copy Several Filenames to Clipboard

December 2, 2013 6:59 AM

I'd like to be able to highlight several files, right click and have the option to copy the filenames to the clipboard. Before upgrading to Windows 7, I had a utility that allowed me to do this, but I don't remember the name of it.
posted by Proginoskes to Computers & Internet (9 answers total)

Best answer: hold shift and right click the selected files. Select the "copy as path" option. Paste into an email/word/etc. Delete all the not file-name parts.

http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/windows-and-office/quick-tip-copy-both-the-path-and-the-file-name-to-the-clipboard/

It's not instant, but it's pretty close and faster then copying each file name one by one.
posted by royalsong at 7:03 AM on December 2, 2013 [1 favorite]

That's an awesome tip, royalsong. I always fire up a command prompt to get lists of filenames.
posted by exhilaration at 7:12 AM on December 2, 2013 [1 favorite]

Thank you, I was trying to remember a different ungly hack but this is great!
posted by sammyo at 7:15 AM on December 2, 2013 [1 favorite]

sammyo, here's one ugly hack you might be thinking of:

1. Press Windows Key + R, type "cmd" and hit enter, which will open the command line program
2. Type "cd " (note the space after "cd," the command to change directory)
3. Copy the folder path (C:/foldername/whatever/) and right-click on the black and white command line window and select "Paste" to input the path after "cd " then hit enter
4. Type "dir" and hit enter. If this directory contains a LOT of files, you may want to type "dir/p" to list the directory one "page" at a time.
5. Right click and choose "Select All," then press Ctrl+C
6. Paste the bunch 'o text in a Word document or Notepad and cut out everything you don't want.

Note: if the directory in question is not on your main hard drive (generally C:), you'll have to type the drive letter and a colon (example: "d:") and hit enter. I'm not quite sure how to get into a network drive that isn't mapped to a local drive letter (sorry, I'm not really that proficient in command line prompts).
posted by filthy light thief at 8:01 AM on December 2, 2013

I use a combination of royalsong and exhilaration's techniques. If you hold shift and right-click in a folder, you can choose "Open command prompt here". You can then use the command "dir /w" to get the file names in a fairly easy-to-copy format. I select the Quick Edit Mode option so that when I highlight a file name, it is automatically copied to the clipboard.
posted by neushoorn at 8:02 AM on December 2, 2013

Best answer: Oh, thanks for reminding me of that, neushoorn.

Otherwise, here's a little freeware app to add a Copy Filenames option to Windows.
posted by filthy light thief at 8:03 AM on December 2, 2013 [1 favorite]

To add to filthy light thief's suggestion, instead of copying from the console one page at a time it's more efficient to use the following command line:

dir /b | clip

This will pipe the output of the dir command to the clip command, which copies its input into the clipboard. The /b option causes dir to just list filenames without any other extraneous output.
posted by zixyer at 11:17 AM on December 2, 2013 [1 favorite]

Best answer: um, what is all this weird stuff? i have a plugin called clipname. it's awesome and easy and requires no thinking.
posted by misanthropicsarah at 1:55 PM on December 2, 2013

Another option to get filenames in a copyable format is to paste the Windows folder path into the address bar of a non-IE browser (Firefox or Chrome, for example). That will usually give you a text display of subfolders, files and details that you can copy and paste.
posted by soelo at 12:12 PM on December 3, 2013