CMD: Export all the screen content to a text file

Question

In command prompt - How do I export all the content of the screen to a text file(basically a copy command, just not by using right-clicking and the clipboard)

This command works, but only for the commands you executed, not the actual output as well

doskey /HISTORY > history.txt 

Answer 1

If you want to append a file instead of constantly making a new one/deleting the old one's content, use double > marks. A single > mark will overwrite all the file's content.

Overwrite file

MyCommand.exe>file.txt 

^This will open file.txt if it already exists and overwrite the data, or create a new file and fill it with your output

Append file from its end-point

MyCommand.exe>>file.txt 

^This will append file.txt from its current end of file if it already exists, or create a new file and fill it with your output.

---

Update #1 (advanced):

My batch-fu has improved over time, so here's some minor updates.

If you want to differentiate between error output and normal output for a program that correctly uses Standard streams, STDOUT/STDERR, you can do this with minor changes to the syntax. I'll just use > for overwriting for these examples, but they work perfectly fine with >> for append, in regards to file-piping output re-direction.

The 1 before the >> or > is the flag for STDOUT. If you need to actually output the number one or two before the re-direction symbols, this can lead to strange, unintuitive errors if you don't know about this mechanism. That's especially relevant when outputting a single result number into a file. 2 before the re-direction symbols is for STDERR.

Now that you know that you have more than one stream available, this is a good time to show the benefits of outputting to nul. Now, outputting to nul works the same way conceptually as outputting to a file. You don't see the content in your console. Instead of it going to file or your console output, it goes into the void.

STDERR to file and suppress STDOUT

MyCommand.exe 1>nul 2>errors.txt

STDERR to file to only log errors. Will keep STDOUT in console

MyCommand.exe 2>errors.txt

STDOUT to file and suppress STDERR

MyCommand.exe 1>file.txt 2>nul

STDOUT only to file. Will keep STDERR in console

MyCommand.exe 1>file.txt

STDOUT to one file and STDERR to another file

MyCommand.exe 1>stdout.txt 2>errors.txt

The only caveat I have here is that it can create a 0-byte file for an unused stream if one of the streams never gets used. Basically, if no errors occurred, you might end up with a 0-byte errors.txt file.

Update #2

I started noticing weird behavior when writing console apps that wrote directly to STDERR, and realized that if I wanted my error output to go to the same file when using basic piping, I either had to combine streams 1 and 2 or just use STDOUT. The problem with that problem is I didn't know about the correct way to combine streams, which is this:

%command% > outputfile 2>&1

Therefore, if you want all STDOUT and STDERR piped into the same stream, make sure to use that like so:

MyCommand.exe > file.txt 2>&1

The redirector actually defaults to 1> or 1>>, even if you don't explicitly use 1 in front of it if you don't use a number in front of it, and the 2>&1 combines the streams.

Update #3 (simple)

Null for Everything

If you want to completely suppress STDOUT and STDERR you can do it this way. As a warning not all text pipes use STDOUT and STDERR but it will work for a vast majority of use cases.

STD* to null MyCommand.exe>nul 2>&1

Copying a CMD or Powershell session's command output

If all you want is the command output from a CMD or Powershell session that you just finished up, or any other shell for that matter you can usually just select that console from that session, CTRL + A to select all content, then CTRL + C to copy the content. Then you can do whatever you like with the copied content while it's in your clipboard.