Find all files in a folder

C#FileDirectory

C# Problem Overview


I am looking to create a program that finds all files of a certain type on my desktop and places them into specific folders, for example, I would have all files with .txt into the Text folder.

Any ideas what the best way would be to accomplish this? Thanks.

I have tried this:

string startPath = @"%userprofile%/Desktop";
string[] oDirectories = Directory.GetDirectories(startPath, "");
Console.WriteLine(oDirectories.Length.ToString());

foreach (string oCurrent in oDirectories)
    Console.WriteLine(oCurrent);

Console.ReadLine();

It was not successful in finding all of the files.

C# Solutions


Solution 1 - C#

A lot of these answers won't actually work, having tried them myself. Give this a go:

string filepath = Environment.GetFolderPath(Environment.SpecialFolder.Desktop);
DirectoryInfo d = new DirectoryInfo(filepath);

foreach (var file in d.GetFiles("*.txt"))
{
      Directory.Move(file.FullName, filepath + "\\TextFiles\\" + file.Name);
}

It will move all .txt files on the desktop to the folder TextFiles.

Solution 2 - C#

First off; best practice would be to get the users Desktop folder with

string path = Environment.GetFolderPath(Environment.SpecialFolder.Desktop);

Then you can find all the files with something like

string[] files = Directory.GetFiles(path, "*.txt", SearchOption.AllDirectories);

Note that with the above line you will find all files with a .txt extension in the Desktop folder of the logged in user AND all subfolders.

Then you could copy or move the files by enumerating the above collection like

// For copying...
foreach (string s in files)
{
   File.Copy(s, "C:\newFolder\newFilename.txt");
}

// ... Or for moving
foreach (string s in files)
{
   File.Move(s, "C:\newFolder\newFilename.txt");
}

Please note that you will have to include the filename in your Copy() (or Move()) operation. So you would have to find a way to determine the filename of at least the extension you are dealing with and not name all the files the same like what would happen in the above example.

With that in mind you could also check out the DirectoryInfo and FileInfo classes. These work in similair ways, but you can get information about your path-/filenames, extensions, etc. more easily

Check out these for more info:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.io.directory.aspx

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms143316.aspx

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.io.file.aspx

Solution 3 - C#

You can try with Directory.GetFiles and fix your pattern

 string[] files = Directory.GetFiles(@"c:\", "*.txt");

 foreach (string file in files)
 {
    File.Copy(file, "....");
 }

 Or Move

 foreach (string file in files)
 {
    File.Move(file, "....");
 }     

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/wz42302f

Attributions

All content for this solution is sourced from the original question on Stackoverflow.

The content on this page is licensed under the Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license.

Content TypeOriginal AuthorOriginal Content on Stackoverflow
QuestionOliver KView Question on Stackoverflow
Solution 1 - C#dtsgView Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 2 - C#Gerald VersluisView Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 3 - C#Aghilas YakoubView Answer on Stackoverflow