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Creating a FileSystemObject

Written by Andy Brown

In this tutorial

Referencing the Microsoft Scripting Runtime Object Library
Creating a FileSystemObject Variable
A Sample Routine Using a FileSystemObject

You won't care what a FileSystemObject is, but you will care what it can do for you. You can use FileSystemObjects to:

get access to the files and folders on your hard disk (to move, copy, rename, delete or open them); and
create and open TextStreams to read text files in line by line, or to write to them.

Each of these topics is described in separate tutorials - the only purpose of this tutorial is to show how to start you off by creating a FileSystemObject. You'll need to do two things:

Create a reference to the Microsoft Scripting Runtime object library.
Create a new FileSystemObject variable.

Here's how to do this!

The easiest way to think of a FileSystemObject is as a running copy of File Explorer. The only difference between referencing a FileSystemObject and referencing an application like Word is that you can't make the FileSystemObject visible (all the file and folder manipulation is done in the background).

Referencing the Microsoft Scripting Runtime Object Library

This is hard to describe, but easy to do. First, you need to choose to create a reference within your Excel workbook (or Word document, PowerPoint presentation or Access database):

Select the menu option shown above.

Within VBA, select Tools References from the menu as shown above.
Tick the Microsoft Scripting Runtime library as shown below, and click OK.

Select the object library shown above.

If you now select Tools -> References from the menu again, you should see the option you selected near the top:

The object libraries that you are referencing appear near the top of the list.

Now that you've referenced this library, it's time to create a FileSystemObject.

Creating a FileSystemObject Variable

The easiest way to do this is to create and instantiate a public variable to refer to a FileSystemObject in a single line.

If that sentence didn't make much sense to you, don't worry! In practice all that you need to do is to type in a single line of code, and everything else will fall into place!

Here's a line of code to do this:

The only reason FileSystemObject appears in the list is because you have referenced the object library containing it.

A Sample Routine Using a FileSystemObject

There is much more on FileDialogs (and on reading/writing to/from text files) in separate tutorials, but here's some sample code to give a flavour:

'ensures you have to declare all variables used

Option Explicit

'create a public variable to refer

'to a file system object

Public fso As New FileSystemObject

Sub ListFiles()

'some example code to list out all

'of the files in a given folder

Dim fol As Folder

Dim fil As File

Set fol = fso.GetFolder("C:\wise owl\")

For Each fil In fol.Files

Debug.Print fil.Name

Next fil

End Sub

Running the ListFiles routine shown above would create a listing of all the files in the wise owl folder of your C drive in the immediate window.

Previous
tutorial

Referencing applications

Previous
part

Using File and Folder Dialog Boxes in VBA

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Next
part

Reading and Writing Text Files using TextStreams

Next
tutorial

Working with databases

You can learn more about this topic on the following Wise Owl courses:

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Tutorials on VBA

Working with files and folders

Creating a FileSystemObject

Referencing the Microsoft Scripting Runtime Object Library

Creating a FileSystemObject Variable

A Sample Routine Using a FileSystemObject

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