Question

How can i get newest subfolder in directory ?
I need it in MKLINK /D command.

Thanks

Answer 1

FOR /F "delims=" %%i IN ('dir /b /ad-h /t:c /od') DO SET a=%%i
echo Most recent subfolder: %a%

(%i for windows 10)

• /b is for bare format
• /ad-h only directories, but not the hidden ones
• t:c means to use the creation date for sorting (use t:w for last write date)
• /od sort oldest first
• The for /F executes the command and sets a to the directory name, the last one is the newest one.

If you execute this directly on the command line (not in a batch file), use % instead of %%.

This works with the current directory – as @iesou pointed out you’ll need to add the directory path after dir if you need to use any other directory path.

Example with specified directory path:

FOR /F "delims=" %%i IN ('dir "c:\Program Files" /b /ad-h /t:c /od') DO SET a=%%i

---

To prevent going through all subfolders, you may change the sort order to have the most recent first (/o-d) and exit the for loop after the first call:

@echo off
FOR /F "delims=" %%i IN ('dir /b /ad-h /t:c /o-d') DO (
    SET a=%%i
    GOTO :found
)
echo No subfolder found
goto :eof
:found
echo Most recent subfolder: %a%