How to know when a new file is added to the file system in Windows?

Question

I want to monitor addition and renaming of files in Windows using C++. I searched on Google but cant find any useful info.

I am open to using Winapi , boost or Qt.

What's the scope? Doing this on the network level would be difficult. HDD on local host a little easier; perhaps. — Bathsheba, Feb 17 '14 at 11:24
I want to monitor on HDD and external drives like pendrive attached to local host. — user221458, Feb 17 '14 at 11:27

score 5 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 12:20

5

You can use File system watcher. See also:

which internally uses ReadDirectoryChangesW:

edited May 23 '17 at 12:20

Community

answered Feb 17 '14 at 11:31

Jochen Kalmbach

score 2 · Answer 2 · answered Feb 17 '14 at 13:06

2

The solution in Qt would be QFileSystemWatcher.

answered Feb 17 '14 at 13:06

Frank Osterfeld

QFileSystemWatcher doesn't tell u the filename that was added/changed. Moreover that can't monitor recursively. – user221458 Feb 17 '14 at 15:31

2 Answers2