How in the Tech

Generate a Listing of a Folder’s Content with CD to HTML

By Adam Myers ⋅ August 19, 2008 ⋅ Tags: File Management

Like any responsible computer user, I maintain a backup set that contains all my important files so when – not if – something disastrous happens I’m covered. There are two groups of computer users: those that backup their data and those that have never lost an irreplaceable file. Let’s just say you don’t want to be the user that transitions from the latter group. Having lost crucial files in the past, backups are something I take quite serious. I’m probably a dieing breed, but I still tend to archive things to CD/DVD – I like the portability of the DVD in that I can store it at the office for cheap and safe offsite storage. The drawback though is that after a few DVD based backup sets it can become quite tedious on how to best catalog the contents of the discs. Quickly, the old sharpie label method breaks down. That’s when a tool like CD to HTML comes in handy.

CD to HTML can create an html file that describes the contents of a folder (and it’s subsequent subfolders and files). It isn’t just limited to CD/DVDs though, as it can work from within any folder on your PC. I typically store the created html index file on the disc itself as well as in a catalog folder on my PC. As all the index files are in one local folder I can use Vista’s integrated search to peak inside of the files and determine which disc houses the files I am looking for.

CD to HTML is a free download and requires no installation, it’s just a single executable.