How do I efficiently pull up the most recently edited .TXT files?

Question

Using Windows is there a command-line string I can execute to show the most recently edited notepad files?

Many times, I don't know the name of the file I need... but I know that I edited it within the last 3 days. What's an efficient way I can perform such an operation in Windows?

Answer 1

Easily get the most recent modified files recursively in order

One way to do this with PowerShell would be to...

1. Use Get-ChildItem to get a recursive list of files .txt extensions

2. Pipe that through to a ForEach-Object loop and use grouping and subexpression operators to return the LastWriteTime property value followed by a comma and the full path file name of each file—sort that in descending order by the LastWriteTime value.

3. With the #1 and #2 result being a variable, pipe that over in a loop to Split(), with the comma being the delimiter, and return only the 2nd index (i.e. [1]) of the iterated value and retain the descending order of the time stamp but return only the full path file names.

PowerShell

$Src = "C:\YourFolder";
$z = (Get-Childitem -Path $Src -include "*.txt" -File -Recurse | % {"$($_.LastWriteTime), $($_.FullName)"}) | Sort-Object -Descending;
$z | % {$_.Split(",")[1]};

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Example Structure

C:\Users\user\Desktop\Dir\A
C:\Users\user\Desktop\Dir\B
C:\Users\user\Desktop\Dir\Test.txt
C:\Users\user\Desktop\Dir\Test2.txt
C:\Users\user\Desktop\Dir\Test3.txt
C:\Users\user\Desktop\Dir\A\2019-07-29 22_18_52-Inquiries.txt
C:\Users\user\Desktop\Dir\A\blah.txt
C:\Users\user\Desktop\Dir\A\Test4.txt
C:\Users\user\Desktop\Dir\B\FLLtest.txt
C:\Users\user\Desktop\Dir\B\FLLtest2.txt

Example Command Output (with date time)

PS C:\Users\user> (Get-Childitem -Path $Src -include "*.txt" -File -Recurse | % {"$($_.LastWriteTime), $($_.FullName)"}) | Sort-Object -Descending;
12/09/2019 18:14:09, C:\Users\user\Desktop\Dir\A\Test4.txt
12/08/2019 20:27:26, C:\Users\user\Desktop\Dir\Test2.txt
12/03/2019 23:55:50, C:\Users\user\Desktop\Dir\Test3.txt
11/02/2019 12:51:35, C:\Users\user\Desktop\Dir\B\FLLtest2.txt
11/02/2019 12:49:09, C:\Users\user\Desktop\Dir\B\FLLtest.txt
07/29/2019 22:38:33, C:\Users\user\Desktop\Dir\A\blah.txt
07/29/2019 22:38:17, C:\Users\user\Desktop\Dir\A\2019-07-29 22_18_52-Inquiries.txt
06/21/2019 23:38:01, C:\Users\user\Desktop\Dir\Test.txt

Example Full Script Output

 C:\Users\user\Desktop\Dir\A\Test4.txt
 C:\Users\user\Desktop\Dir\Test2.txt
 C:\Users\user\Desktop\Dir\Test3.txt
 C:\Users\user\Desktop\Dir\B\FLLtest2.txt
 C:\Users\user\Desktop\Dir\B\FLLtest.txt
 C:\Users\user\Desktop\Dir\A\blah.txt
 C:\Users\user\Desktop\Dir\A\2019-07-29 22_18_52-Inquiries.txt
 C:\Users\user\Desktop\Dir\Test.txt

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Supporting Resources

• Get-ChildItem
• ForEach-Object

  Standard Aliases for Foreach-Object: the '%' symbol, ForEach

• Sort-Object
• Split()

Answer 2

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This is simple option to do this in cmd/batch or command line for local/folder list only:

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/o:d = order by date (old first) || is the same /od
/o-d = order by date (reverse -) || is the same /o:-d
/b   = basic out put (name only) 
/s   = recursively

:: - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ::

rem./  you can use any options...

dir /o:-d /b /s
dir /o-d /b /s 
dir /o-d/b/s
dir/o-d/b/s

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