In this post, we will see how to get a list of files in a folder in Excel. We will show you how to use Excel to view file and folder information on Windows by importing all file and folder information into Microsoft Excel to keep track of file size, file type, and last modified date.
We have a lot of files and folders on our Windows PC and we can delete or add more files and folders often. There may be some folders and files that are very important to us, and someone may edit them without our notice. But we can’t keep going through every folder and file to see which one has been edited. If it was a modification of a file or folder, we can sort them using Last Modified, and we can find out which ones have been changed recently.
But what if some files and folders have been deleted from this directory? We will not be able to track what exactly has been deleted. But you can use Excel to view files and folder information in a directory, which would be helpful for you to know at least a list of files and folders that have been deleted.
Import and get list of filenames into Excel sheet
If you use Microsoft Excel to import all file and folder information into Excel, it will help you regularly keep track of the last modified date and time, file types, file list, file size, and more. To do this, follow these simple steps.
Navigate to the directory or folder in Windows Explorer that you want to track. This is where I want to keep track of my files and folders in the Documents folder. Copy the path of this directory.
Now open any web browser of your choice and paste the copied path (the path to the folder you just copied in the previous step) into the address bar of the browser. I have used google chrome here. Just add the file: /// prefix to the URL and its content will be displayed on the web page.
To save this web page as an offline copy, press CTRL + S or right-click the web page and select Save Page As. Choose a destination, give it a name and save the webpage.
Now, using Windows Explorer, navigate to the folder where you saved the offline web page and copy the path. To open an Excel sheet, click the Data tab and click From the Web. A window will open, paste the copied path in the address bar and click the “Go” button. It will download all the content of the webpage.
It shows yellow rectangles with arrows and allows you to select the desired frame. You can find here that I have selected the part I want.
After completing these steps, now click the import button and you will see that all file and folder data is imported into your Excel sheet in no time. You can see that the data is shown in columns and gives us a clear view of every detail.
Conclusion
Since we deal with organizing files and folders most of the time, it is recommended that you import the details of files and folders into Excel. This would be helpful if any of your files or folders needed to be deleted. The data in the Excel sheet is not updated, so we need to import the data regularly. You can use this method when you need to track not only file changes, but also file names.
