Count files in a folder and subfolders from the command line

Question

How do I count all files of a given type (eg. *.mp3) in a designated folder (and optionally subfolders) from command line into a environment variable?

(no PowerShell please, just batch commands)

Answer 1

set filesCount=0 & for %f in (*) do @(set /a filesCount+=1 > nul)

Answer 2

Count files in a folder and subfolders

Use the following command:

dir /b *.mp3 /s 2> nul | find "" /v /c > tmp && set /p count=<tmp && del tmp && echo %count%

The environment variable %count% will contain the number of files.

Note:

• Remove /s if you don't want to count files in subfolders.

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Example (using *.txt)

Directory listing to show the 17 files:

F:\test>dir /b *.txt /s
F:\test\abc.txt
F:\test\blackwhite.txt
F:\test\cpu.txt
F:\test\interface.txt
F:\test\Lorem ipsum.txt
F:\test\right.txt
F:\test\rights.txt
F:\test\software.txt
F:\test\tabs.txt
F:\test\test.txt
F:\test\this is inside junction.txt
F:\test\unique.txt
F:\test\xyz.txt
F:\test\sub\abc.txt
F:\test\sub\xyz.txt
F:\test\sub with space\junction sub with space.txt
F:\test\sub with space\xyz.txt

Run the command:

F:\test>dir /b *.txt /s 2> nul | find "" /v /c > tmp && set /p count=<tmp && del tmp && echo %count%
17

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Further reading

• An A-Z Index of the Windows CMD command line - An excellent reference for all things Windows cmd line related.
• find - Search for a text string in a file & display all the lines where it is found.

Answer 3

Use a combination of dir and find to count the files. Store the files into a variable via the for loop. Redirect error output to nul to hide File Not Found error.

@echo off
for /f %%i in ('dir *.xlsx /s /b 2^> nul ^| find "" /v /c') do set VAR=%%i
echo %VAR%

See descriptions of parameters using /? for dir, find, and for.