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How can I find the total number of files in a folder?

Boy, am I disappointed with Dropbox. I assumed that each folder would display the number of files in that folder, without me jumping through all kinds of hoops. This seems not to be the case, however...

Did anyone come up with a nifty solution to this problem?

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Rich

Are you referring to the Dropbox website or the folder on your computer. If it's the folder, use the features of your opreating system for that. If it's the Dropbox website, select all the files in the folder and the count will be shown in the upper right.

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Rich

yoyoyo8

How do I determine how many files are contained in a folder on Dropbox? Manually counting the number will take too long. Is there a counter showing the number of files? Many thanks.

Mark

This was asked just below your post... have a look over at https://www.dropboxforum.com/t5/Photos-and-videos/How-can-I-find-the-total-number-of-files-in-a-folder/m-p/276877#M11257

Ann L.3

While the suggested techniques works to calculate the size of the folder and the number of items (folders within that folder), it does not calclate the number of total files in the main folder when there are sub folders. For example I want to know howmany jpg files I have an a particular travel itinerary, but for organizational purposes, I put each day's photos in a subfolder by date. I can't find any way to calulate the total number of files without having the folder sync to my desktop and then locating the information through my operating system OR opening each sub folder, calculating the number of files and repeating this for each sub folder and then adding those sub totals. There should be a way to do this in Dropbox if it is easy to do in in my desktop folder, especially when users are encouraged to keep folders online.

qqq1

@Rich by "select all the files in the folder", did you mean to say "to see number of files in a folder, you need to click every one of them individually"? How is that an answer?

I must be misunderstanding something here, can you explain?

Walter

Can you not click the box to the left of the 'Name' header when navigating your file-structure @qqq1?

While we're at it, kindly note that you could also use the 'Ctrl+A' shortcut when in a folder of yours to select all the files within it.

I hope this helps!

qqq1

@Walterthanks for the quick response.

1. When clicking the square next to folder name, it just shows a larger "folder" icon on the right side, nowhere does it show count of files in that folder; when clicking multiple such squares, it does show how many folders I have clicked, but not how many files they contain.

Am I supposed to see file count anywhere when clicking on a folder? Do I have some wrong/different interface from other users (I'm on a Business plan)?

2. Ctrl-A inside a folder does indeed select all items and show their count... but how does it answer the question? The question is, given a list of folders with arbitrary depth, how does one see number of files in those folders and all their subfolders (what "size" metric is applied to now, but count rather that size)?

Walter

Ah, I see now - thanks for the clarifications @qqq1!

In regards to your first point, I was referring to the default 'Name' header when navigating your folders - not a particular folder. As a matter of fact, what you described is the normal behavior.

As per your second point, I was merely suggesting this so as to get an overview of the folders/files you'd be selecting.

I understand your point now though (as you'd like to calculate the files' count within a more complex folder-structure) so I'll make a note of it in my internal feedback report to our devs for future improvements on our service.

In the meantime, you could use your computer's OS to calculate the files within your folders - assuming that you have our desktop app installed that is.

I know it's not much, yet, I sure hope this helps to some extent.

Let us know if you come up with any additional questions!

tdenson

I can't believe after all this time and so many complaints that DropBox have still not fixed this fundamental flaw. It's been going on for years. So what Walter is saying as recently as two weeks ago is that the only way to get a full file count of an arbitrary folder containing sub folders is to download the files to a computer. I have a 65GB folder containg 17,000 photos and I want to check that I have the right number of files in the cloud before I delete them from the computer they were on. Firstly, I do not have sufficient free disk space to download them and even if I did I am in Africa with very poor (and expensive) bandwidth. What am I meant to do ? This is ridiculous.

MrLawrence

I would also like to be able to check the number of files in a folder that has subfolders, so that I can check on the progress of a remote process that is uploading to Dropbox but that I can't otherwise access while I'm away from home.

It'd also just be nice to know what's actually in your Dropbox.........

dazzop

Yes, this would be another example of a disorganised company with a disorganised app, I'm afraid! MacBook Pro and Android won't show this, but iPhone X did! Not sure if it does still, though!

pkelly

No matter how the question is posed, the standard replies are:

1. use the Dropbox folder on your PC, and then you can use your PC to find out. Problem solved. (The problem is the website of course!)

2. Using the website? Then do a CTRL-A and you'll see the number of folders top right. Problem Solved. (Come on!)

There is never a simple answer to what people want to know, i.e. how can we find the number of files in a folder including ALL SUBFOLDERS? (This is something people commonly do in a simple way with Windows, i.e ight click on a folder, select Properties.)

Can you find this information in Dropbox?

pkelly

Why do many of these questions have "Solved! Go to the solution" beside them, when clearly the simple question(s) have not been answered or solved.

Rich

@pkelly wrote:
No matter how the question is posed, the standard replies are:

Because those are your only options. There is no feature to get a file count using the Dropbox website.

TWalker

You are correct. Questions are not answered. It appears it is some bot's job to guess the most likely answer after a predefined period of time. The bot's action is supposed to make you believe that somebody is actually paying attention to questions.

There is no support. And 'the Community' certainly can not fix, or even report, the program's short comings even after everyone in the Community has came to the conclusion it needs fixed.

Daphne

Hey peeps, just dropping in here!

At the moment, we don't have a feature within Dropbox that allows you to see a total of how many files are within a folder and all its subfolders online.

The current suggested work around is that if you have the desktop app syncing your files, you can use the default file browser options to see the number of files.

We really do appreciate all the feedback we get for existing and desired features that we get.

Currently, we have a feature request thread for this ability online here, so if you like the idea, I'd suggest sharing your thoughts and upvoting the idea too.

Let me know if you have any other questions on this!

natlipson

This will NOT work if there are MANY files (thousands) in the folder because the webpage loads them in groups. So if, for example, you have a folder with 50,000 files, that method would actually miselad you to think there are much less than there are.

Allen77

Pretty incredible that Dropbox does not have this very basic feature. I am in the same boat. So much for comparing backups and restores with total file numbers.

Each dropbox folder should have an option called "Folder Info". That, at the very least, should tell you the size and file count of the folder.

Daphne

Hey @Allen77 and @natlipson, thanks for sharing your thoughts here!

We currently have a request for this feature in our "Share an idea" section here. If you'd like to show your support for this, please check it out an upvote the idea.

Sorry that I can't be of much more help with this, but please don't hesitate to get back to me here with any other questions.

Have a great day!

natlipson

Hi @Daphne. Considering that the first post on thie issue was written almost two years ago and considering the length of this thread, your answer - which is the first really complete address of the issue - comes way too late. For almost two years there was complete disregard at worst or frutrating non-answer answers.

rebelPhil

Yes, this is sorely needed. It should show the amount of files in a folder.

Also, we should be able to choose to have more than 3 columns displayed if we want. For example, I would want Name, Size, # of files, and date last modified.

Lastly, it should carry over into integrations. I have found that the size is not carrying over into our Salesforce.com for folders.

This doesn't seem that hard, quite being obtuse Dropbox and let people customize their file organization experience per their preferences, not what you think people want...

TFlash

There is no way to tell how many files in a folder. It would be nice to be able to tell if all 250 images uploaded correctly by looking at how many are in the folder.

Rich

@TFlash wrote:
There is no way to tell how many files in a folder. It would be nice to be able to tell if all 250 images uploaded correctly by looking at how many are in the folder.

Select all the files in the folder, and the number of selected files appears on teh right side of the page.

Lady Di

Thank you for welcoming me into the DB community.

I am a photographer so I mainly use Dropbox to back up all photos and videos. Is there a way to see the numbers of photos and vids I've backed up in Dropbox?

jackcalling

I would just like what you offer to work better. Look at what I get. I can guess that it might be 365 or 385. But the presentation of this data is useless when I'm trying to ensure all files are uploaded before I delete from my PC.