How to Print Your App Directory Structure in Terminal

To print your app’s directory structure in the terminal, use one of these commands:

🌳 1. Using tree (Recommended - Clean & Visual)

Install tree if not available:

# macOS (with Homebrew)
brew install tree

# Ubuntu/Debian
sudo apt-get install tree

# CentOS/RHEL/Fedora
sudo yum install tree      # or
sudo dnf install tree

Basic usage:

# Show entire project structure
tree

# Show only specific depth (e.g., 2 levels deep)
tree -L 2

# Exclude node_modules, .git, etc.
tree -I 'node_modules|.git|dist|build|.next'

# Show with file sizes
tree -s

# Save to file
tree -I 'node_modules|.git' > structure.txt

Example output:

my-app/
├── public/
│   ├── favicon.ico
│   └── vercel.svg
├── src/
│   ├── components/
│   │   └── Header.tsx
│   ├── pages/
│   │   ├── api/
│   │   └── index.tsx
│   └── styles/
│       └── globals.css
├── package.json
├── tsconfig.json
└── next.config.js

📁 2. Using find (Built-in - No Installation Needed)

# Basic structure (all files)
find . -print | sed -e 's;[^/]*/;|____;g;s;____|; |;g'

# Exclude common directories
find . -type f ! -path "./node_modules/*" ! -path "./.git/*" ! -path "./dist/*" ! -path "./build/*" ! -path "./.next/*"

# With indentation (macOS/Linux)
find . -not -path "*/node_modules/*" -not -path "*/\.git/*" | sort

🔍 3. Quick One-Liners for Common Cases

# Just show directory names (no files)
find . -type d | sort

# Show only source code structure (exclude hidden and build dirs)
ls -R | grep ":$" | sed -e 's/:$//' -e 's/[^-][^\/]*\//--/g' -e 's/^/   /' -e 's/-/|/'

# Simple list with indentation
du -a --max-depth=2

💡 Pro Tips:

1. Always exclude node_modules – it’s huge and not relevant to your app structure:

   tree -I 'node_modules'

2. For Next.js projects, also exclude build directories:

   tree -I 'node_modules|.git|.next|out|dist'

3. Save output to file for documentation:

   tree -I 'node_modules|.git' -o project-structure.txt

4. Show only specific file types:

   tree -P "*.tsx"  # Only TypeScript React files