Back up only file names with folder structure

Question

I'm using Windows 7 Home Basic "Service pack 1" on a Samsung rv420 computer.

I'm doing a back up of my files. I have a folder called "music i like" (it's not the default music folder windows 7 has), said folder has other folders, with folders inside, and the "deepest" folders (those without folders inside) have mp3 music files.

I don't want to back up this music files because they are too big, but I'm interested in copying the filename, wich for each song is the title of the song. Because that way, I will have a list with all songs I like, and that will not take much space in disk (it will be a text file not exceeding a couple of kb)

I don't want to do this by hand, there are too many songs.

If possible, I want a more complex back-up: I want some way to know in wich folder the files were. That would ensure I know the artist. I.e: There are many songs called "I love you" but If i know the folder of the song, wich is in many cases the artist's name, I can know the artist and thus identify the song.

My own progress: I tried "Robocopy" command in cmd, but it only copied folder names without any information of the files inside. I need the file-names at least.

Answer 1

Two suggestions:
1. Use robocopy sourcedir destination /CREATE /S. This will copy the folder structure and all files but set the filesize of each file to 0.

2. Use tree /F to get a tree listing of all files. This is a graphical representation of the folder tree, along with all filenames. It's not, though, a backup - if you are interested in a list of files with folder hierarchy, tree might be more convenient.

Answer 2

How do I create a list of files including the subdirectory hierarchy?

Use the following command:

dir /a-d /b /s > myfiles.txt

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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.
• dir - Display a list of files and subfolders.