Windows – Search for a file with wildcards in the path using Windows command line

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How can I search for files in the Windows command line, using wildcards like this?

C:\Users\*\AppData\Local\*.txt

Best Answer

Windows PowerShell can do this easily.

Get-ChildItem C:\Users\*\AppData\Local\*.txt

If you want to include subfolders:

Get-ChildItem C:\Users\*\AppData\Local\*.txt -recurse

Regarding Hidden (etc.) files, Powershell's help Get-ChildItem says:

By default, Get-ChildItem gets non-hidden items, but you can use the Directory, File, Hidden, ReadOnly, and System parameters to get only items with these attributes. To create a complex attribute search, use the Attributes parameter. If you use these parameters, Get-ChildItem gets only the items that meet all search conditions, as though the parameters were connected by an AND operator.

Related Solutions

Search of a file using command prompt

There are two options: FIND or FINDSTR, both of which are built-in to the Windows Command Prompt.

You can use FIND to search for a simple string in a file:

FIND "apple" file.txt

You can also use it to search all files in the current directory:

FIND "apple" *

FINDSTR has a few more options: you can do searches with regular expressions, and you can search recursively into subdirectories:

FINDSTR /s "apple" *

In all cases, these commands print each line that matches the string to be searched, along with the file they were found in.

Windows – List files with path using Windows command line

If I understand what you are looking for try

dir/s/b *.bat

If that works then redirect it into a text file....

dir/s/b *.bat > textfile.txt

You may also find it useful to have a list of command line switches for the DIR command.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Search of a file using command prompt

Windows – List files with path using Windows command line

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