How to Pass MULTIPLE filenames to a Context Menu Shell Command?

Question

Passing a single filename to a context menu shell command is simple:

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*\shell\MyProgram\Command]
@="program.exe %1"

But if I select multiple files, program.exe is invoked for each such selected file.

What I would like to do instead is invokeprogram.exe only once, passing to it all the filenames currently selected.

How to do this?

Solution 1

You may want to look at this post, as it says that this isn't really possible to pass multiple files to a single instance and you must rely on some form of IPC(Inter process Communication).

Solution 2

You can use Send To for this. It supports multiple files.

In case this website goes offline:

Open shell:sendto with Windows + R or paste it into your explorer address bar. It should redirect you to:

C:\Users\<yourusername>\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\SendTo

Create a shortcut to your program in this folder and you should see it in your explorer right-click menu under Send to

Comments

[akinuri]

It seems there's a limit to how many files can be sent depending on the files' path. I can send 504 files with paths C:\test\001.txt. 504 file names amount to 7560 chars (no space), 8063 chars (space delimited). Sending 505 files (7575 chars [no space]; 8079 [space delimited]) doesn't work.

[Shakeer Mirza]

Saved me so much time. I use it for compare software.. Thanks

[preachers]

When trying to pass the file G:\New [folder] (4)\Untitled-2.txt to a Powershell script, the result becomes G:\New [folder] 4 \Untitled-2.txt. It seems that parentheses cannot be parsed correctly. Any solution?

[gargoylebident]

@preachers try escaping parenths with a back tick: G:\New [folder] `(4`)\Untitled-2.txt