List all files in a directory in Node.js recursively in a synchronous fashion

walksync.js

// List all files in a directory in Node.js recursively in a synchronous fashion
var walkSync = function(dir, filelist) {
  var fs = fs || require('fs'),
      files = fs.readdirSync(dir);
  filelist = filelist || [];
  files.forEach(function(file) {
    if (fs.statSync(dir + file).isDirectory()) {
      filelist = walkSync(dir + file + '/', filelist);
    }
    else {
      filelist.push(file);
    }
  });
  return filelist;
};

I think the most elegant way to list all files and/or directories recursively is using globs. You can use globby.

const globby = require('globby');

const listAllFilesAndDirs = dir => globby(`${dir}/**/*`);

(async () => {
  const result = await listAllFilesAndDirs(process.cwd());
  console.log(result);
})();

@gemyero Great solution, thanks!

mmh Carefull with globby ;)

Here is my way (with typescript):

import fs from "fs/promises";
import path from "path";

export default async function walk(directory: string) {
  let fileList: string[] = [];

  const files = await fs.readdir(directory);
  for (const file of files) {
    const p = path.join(directory, file);
    if ((await fs.stat(p)).isDirectory()) {
      fileList = [...fileList, ...(await walk(p))];
    } else {
      fileList.push(p);
    }
  }

  return fileList;
}

Alternative solution in Just two lines, Just for fun and learning

const path = ''; // 👈 path to your location
const list = require("child_process").execSync(`cd ${path} && ls -R`).toString().split(`\n`);

⚠️ IMPORTANT
Be careful, this solution use a bash script and it works fine in MACOS, for windows or linux could be different

What I use is based on @vidul-nikolaev-petrov version, with a callback argument to do something with files:

const walkSync = (dir, callback) =>  fs.lstatSync(dir).isDirectory()
        ? fs.readdirSync(dir).map(f => walkSync(path.join(dir, f), callback))
        : callback(dir);

// Note: call to flat at the end to have one array with every paths
const svgs = walkSync(path, fileToBase64).flat()

Alternative solution in Just two lines, Just for fun and learning

const path = ''; // 👈 path to your location
const list = require("child_process").execSync(`cd ${path} && ls -R`).toString().split(`\n`);

⚠️ IMPORTANT
Be careful, this solution use a bash script and it works fine in MACOS, for windows or linux could be different

Please, never do that

@FerreiraRaphael kudos

Hi, here's a modern version:

const fs = require('fs').promises;
const path = require('path');

const walk = async (dir, filelist = []) => {
  const files = await fs.readdir(dir);

  for (file of files) {
    const filepath = path.join(dir, file);
    const stat = await fs.stat(filepath);

    if (stat.isDirectory()) {
      filelist = await walk(filepath, filelist);
    } else {
      filelist.push(file);
    }
  }

  return filelist;
}

Here's what I used (needed import)

import * as fs from 'fs/promises';
import path from 'path';

export async function directory_read(dir, filelist = []) {
  const files = await fs.readdir(dir);

  for (let file of files) {
    const filepath = path.join(dir, file);
    const stat = await fs.stat(filepath);

    if (stat.isDirectory()) {
      filelist = await directory_read(filepath, filelist);
    } else {
      filelist.push(file);
    }
  }

  return filelist;
}

Node v20.1+

const filelist = await fs.readdir(dir, { recursive: true });