# walk-sync

> Get an array of recursive directory contents

Latest version **4.0.2** (published 2026-05-16) · MIT license · 0 weekly downloads

## Install

```sh
npm install walk-sync
pnpm add walk-sync
yarn add walk-sync
bun add walk-sync
```

## Health

**Score 55/100 (C)** — status: active.

Positive: has types; no vulnerabilities; high quality score.

Warnings: low downloads; no esm support.

## Facts

| | |
|---|---|
| Version | 4.0.2 |
| Published | 2026-05-16 |
| First published | 2014-02-10 |
| Weekly downloads | 0 |
| License | MIT |
| TypeScript types | bundled |
| Module format | CommonJS |
| Node | >= 20.* |
| Dependencies | 3 |
| Unpacked size | 19.5 KB |
| Known vulnerabilities | 0 |
| Install scripts | no |
| GitHub stars | 75 |
| Author | Jo Liss |
| Maintainers | joliss, hjdivad, rwjblue, stefanpenner |

## Links

- npm: https://www.npmjs.com/package/walk-sync
- Repository: https://github.com/joliss/node-walk-sync
- Homepage: https://github.com/joliss/node-walk-sync#readme
- Issues: https://github.com/joliss/node-walk-sync/issues
- npm.io page: https://npm.io/package/walk-sync

## Dependencies (3)

- [minimatch](https://npm.io/package/minimatch.md) ^10.0.3
- [ensure-posix-path](https://npm.io/package/ensure-posix-path.md) ^1.1.1
- [matcher-collection](https://npm.io/package/matcher-collection.md) ^2.0.1

## Recent versions

- 4.0.2 (latest) — 2026-05-16
- 4.0.1 — 2025-09-03
- 4.0.0 — 2025-09-03
- 3.0.0 — 2021-06-11
- 2.2.0 — 2020-06-24
- 2.1.0 — 2020-04-13
- 2.0.2 — 2019-07-09
- 2.0.1 — 2019-06-28
- 2.0.0 — 2019-06-26
- 1.1.4 — 2019-06-26
- 1.1.3 — 2019-02-05
- 1.1.2 — 2019-02-04
- 1.1.1 — 2019-02-04
- 1.1.0 — 2019-02-03
- 1.0.1 — 2018-12-10
- … 19 more at https://npm.io/package/walk-sync/versions

## README

# node-walk-sync

[![CI](https://github.com/joliss/node-walk-sync/workflows/CI/badge.svg)](https://github.com/joliss/node-walk-sync/actions/workflows/ci.yml)

Return an array containing all recursive files and directories under a given
directory, similar to Unix `find`. Follows symlinks. Optimized for speed.

## `fs.readdirSync()` comparison

As of Node 20, I recommend using the built-in function `fs.readdirSync` with `{
recursive: true }` for basic use cases, which tends to be even faster:

```js
const paths = fs.readdirSync('some/dir', { recursive: true }).sort()
// equivalent to walkSync('some/dir')
```

This `walk-sync` package differs from `fs.readdirSync` in the following ways:

* It adds trailing slashes to directories.
* It provides a few extra options (see below).
* It sorts by default, in order to avoid non-deterministic behavior.
* Like `fs.readdirSync`, it follows symlinks, but it avoids descending into
  cycles caused by symlinks.

## Installation

```bash
npm install walk-sync
```

## Usage

```js
const walkSync = require('walk-sync');
const paths = walkSync('project')
```

Given `project/one.txt` and `project/subdir/two.txt`, `paths` will be the following
array:

```js
['one.txt', 'subdir/', 'subdir/two.txt']
```

Directories come before their contents, and have a trailing forward-slash (on
all platforms).

Symlinks are followed.

### Entries

Sometimes, it is important to get additional information from a walk of a
directory; for instance if the downstream consumer needs to stat the files we
can leverage the stats from the walk.

To accommodate, `walkSync.entries(path [, options])` is also provided, instead
of returning a list of files and/or directories it returns an array of objects
which correspond to a given file or directory, except with more data.

```
entry.relativePath
entry.mode  // => fs.statSync(fullPath).mode
entry.size  // => fs.statSync(fullPath).size
entry.mtime // => fs.statSync(fullPath).mtime.getTime()

entry.isDirectory() // => true if directory
```

### Options

* `globs`: An array of globs. Only files and directories that match at least
  one of the provided globs will be returned.

    ```js
    const paths = walkSync('project', { globs: ['subdir/**/*.txt'] });
    // => ['subdir/two.txt']
    ```

    As an alternative to string globs, you can pass an array of precompiled
    [`minimatch.Minimatch`](https://github.com/isaacs/minimatch#minimatch-class)
    instances. This is faster and allows to specify your own globbing options.

* `directories` (default: true): Pass `false` to only return files, not
  directories:

    ```js
    const paths = walkSync('project', { directories: false })
    // => ['one.txt', 'subdir/two.txt']
    ```

* `ignore`: An array of globs. Files and directories that match at least one
  of the provided globs will be pruned while searching.

    ```js
    const paths = walkSync('project', { ignore: ['subdir'] })
    // => ['one.txt']
    ```

    As an alternative to string globs, you can pass an array of precompiled
    [`minimatch.Minimatch`](https://github.com/isaacs/minimatch#minimatch-class)
    instances. This is faster and allows to specify your own globbing options.

* `includeBasePath` (default: false): Pass `true` to include the basePath in the output.
   *note: this flag is only for `walkSync(..)` not `walkSync.entries(..)`*

   ```js
    const paths = walkSync('project', { includeBasePath: true });
    // => ['project/one.txt', 'project/subdir/two.txt']
   ```

* `fs`: Allows an alternative implementation of [fs](https://nodejs.org/api/fs.html) to be supplied.
   *examples of alternative file systems include [memfs](https://github.com/streamich/memfs) or [graceful-fs](https://github.com/isaacs/node-graceful-fs#readme)*

   ```js
    import {Volume, createFsFromVolume} from 'memfs'
    const fs = createFsFromVolume(Volume.fromJSON({'aDir/aFile': 'some-contents'}))
    const paths = walkSync('project', { fs });
    // => ['aDir/', 'aDir/aFile']
   ```

* `globOptions`: Pass any options for [Minimatch](https://www.npmjs.com/package/minimatch) that will be applied to all items in `globs` and `ignore` that are strings.

  If items in `globs` or `ignore` are instances of `minimatch.Minimatch`, the `globOptions` will not be applied.

## Background

`walkSync(baseDir)` is a faster substitute for

```js
glob.sync('**', {
  cwd: baseDir,
  dot: true,
  mark: true,
  strict: true
})

---
_Source: https://npm.io/package/walk-sync · Machine-readable twin of the npm.io package page. Health data is recomputed on every publish._