YourDir

When Windows gets installed, it creates complex directory structures filled with an abundance of different files needed to run the operating system, but a large structure can also be the result of your intense actions. To get a better view of the situation, specialized applications like YourDir let you easily generate one, and print it out.

First of all, the application is portable, which means you don’t have to go through the effort of installing it on your computer, thus enabling you to carry it around on a USB flash drive to use on other PCs as well. However, you do need to make sure that .NET Framework is a part of Windows, because it’s one of the main requirements.

By default, the main window is empty, apart for the two sample directories that give you an idea of how everything is displayed, as well as informing you about what needs to be done. Sadly, you can’t just drag a target folder over the main window to get it ready, but the built-in browse dialog for folder selection is fast and practical enough.

Depending on your choice, the list can become pretty large and difficult to navigate through. What’s more, choosing to show files as well makes it even bigger. Sadly, there’s no search function to find anything of interest, but file management is not the application’s core function.

In order to narrow down results, there’s the possibility to specify the limit of entries, as well as nesting depth. The list is generated quite fast, and you can print the list on a sheet of paper, or save it as JPG, BMP, GIF, TIFF, and WMF. However, if you do decide to print, make sure to preview first, because the default structure limit is 1000 items, which translates into an image file of height around 18000 pixels.

All things considered, we come to the conclusion that YourDir comes in handy if you ever need to generate a visual list of files and folders on a specific drive. The list is almost instantly generated, with options to print or export as picture, but it would have been good to see at least a few visual customization options, since management is not the primary concern here.