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Managing your files and folders is one of the most important skills to have if you want to be a proficient Windows user. Knowing where to find the files you need to work with and how to get there is critical to accomplishing your day to day computing tasks.
If you have the need to save or print out a listing of the files and folders for a specific purpose, you can do so within Windows without using a third party application. But if you want something a bit more professional looking and interactive, then we have the tool for you. In this article, we will be showing you how to export a folder\directory with its files and subfolders with clickable file links using a free tool called Snap2HTML.
Snap2HTML will export a folder of your choosing to an HTML report which will also include any subfolders and files. To begin the process, you will need to first download the Snap2HTML from their website here. The app will be in a zip file and once you extract the zip file, all you need to do is double click the Snap2HTML.exe file to run the program since there is nothing to install.
The Snap2HTML tool is very easy to use and once you run it, all you need to do is choose what root folder you want the export report to start in. For our example, we will be creating a report of our Documents folder. As you can see in the image below, you can also have the report include hidden and system items if you check the box for the ones you want to include.
If you check the Enable box, the report will have clickable links for each of the files contained within it. Then once you click on a file within the report, it will open it within your web browser if it’s a supported file type. If not, then it will download the file to your computer. One thing to keep in mind is if you send this HTML report to someone else, they will not be able to access your files by clicking on one of the file links.
You can also check the box that says Open in browser when ready to have the report open in your default web browser right after it is created.
You will then need to choose a location on your computer to save the HTML report. Snap2HTML will name it after the folder name by default, but you can use your own custom name if desired.
You can then open the HTML report in your web browser to view its contents. You will see that you can navigate throughout the various folders and expand them like you can if you were using File Explorer. You will also have a file and folder count at the bottom of the page along with the space used by each.
If you checked the Enable box in the Link files section, you would then be able to click on a file within the report and open it in your web browser (if supported) or download it somewhere else on your computer. But I you were to open this report on a different computer that did not contain those files, you would not be able to access or open them.
There will also be a search box at the upper left of the HTML report. You can use this to search for files contained in the report just like you would if using File Explorer. For example, if we search for *.pdf, we will see all the PDF files in the various folders contained within the report.
If you click on the Export this View link at the lower right corner of the report, you will have some options to export the current view to a text, JSON or CSV file.
As you can see, Snap2HTML is an easy way to export a folder with its files and subfolders with clickable file links.
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