Create a file index for a folder

[MikeHK]

How do I create a file index of Folders in Dropbox so that when I share a folder and its sub-folders?  I want to do this to let other people know the contents of a shared folder with sub folders rather than them having to look all through the sub folders to find where files are.

[atccodex]

I would assume this could be done with the API, but that is going to require a lot of scripting. I don't think there is just a standard way. Sounds like a job for Google Sheets and a manual input.

[Lusil]

Hi there @MikeHK!

Could you be referring to the option to see the file structure of a folder? In this case, this isn’t currently an option from the website, but instead, you should be able to do this from the desktop app. 

Since the Dropbox folder is just like any other folder on your computer, you should be able to view the folder structure just like you would for any other folder through your OS’s file browser (File explorer for Windows and Finder for Mac).

In any case, I’d be more than happy to pass your comments along to the dev team for future consideration. Hope this helped to some extent! 

[MikeHK]

Lusil,
Thank you for your reply and sorry for the late reply in response.
What I would like to do is create a file directory to help people navigate a Folder I have shared with them rather than looking at the file structure of a Folder.  It would be a document ( Word or PDF) and the contents would look something like this

Master Folder
1. Sub Folder
1.1 Sub Folder A
List of files in Sub folder A
1.2 Sub Folder B
List of files in Sub Folder B
2. Sub Folder
List of files if Sub Folder 2
3. Sub Folder
List of files if Sub Folder 3
4. Sub Folder
4.1 Sub Folder C
List of files in Sub folder C
4.2 Sub Folder D
List of files in Sub Folder D

Do you know a way to do this?
Thanks
Mike

[MikeHK]

Atccodex

Thank you for your reply and sorry for the late reply.

The Folders I am sharing often have + 100 files in a Folder structure with various Sub Folders so what I am looking for is an easy way to generate from DropBox or my Mac a contents list that I can share to help people navigate the Folder I have shared with them. The Contents list would look something like

Master Folder
1. Sub Folder
1.1 Sub Folder A
List of files in Sub folder A
1.2 Sub Folder B
List of files in Sub Folder B
2. Sub Folder
List of files if Sub Folder 2
3. Sub Folder
List of files if Sub Folder 3
4. Sub Folder
4.1 Sub Folder C
List of files in Sub folder C
4.2 Sub Folder D
List of files in Sub Folder D

Any thoughts on how this could be generated most welcome as I am bit stumped as to how to do it save for typing the file names one by one.

Thanks

MIke

[JokinAU]

Hello!

We needed to do something similar, so we decided to share it just in case anyone could make use of it. We had to list the contents using Windows 8.1, so we just opened Notepad, and added this in it:

Tree "C:\SharedFolder" /F | Select-Object -Skip 2 | Set-Content "C:\SharedFolder\Contents.txt"

Change C:\SaredFolder to whatever you need. Then save it as ContentTree.ps1 or something similar (keep the ps1 extension).

Then, whenever we update the folders or files, we right click on ContentTree.ps1, "Run with PowerShell", and then it creates (or updates) Contents.txt

It is not automatic, but we didn't need it. Good luck!

[atccodex]

@MikeHK,

@JokinAU's answer will work for Windows. If you want to do it on a Mac, checkout THIS ARTICLE. 

It should do exactly what you are looking for. Now if you want this to be automatic, you will need to setup some kind of script to run that command automatically. I wont have access to a Mac until later tonight, but I could try and setup a simple script for you that will do what you want.