Recursively adding .org files in a top-level directory for org-agenda-files takes a long time

Question

I'm trying to find a way to quickly recurse through every subdirectory searching for org files. I've found several solutions (Elisp Cookbook, and several solutions on github), but they don't handle my real world usage (hundreds of directories (and subdirectories) and hundreds of org files). They seem to run forever on my system (Windows 7, with max-lisp-eval-depth = 10000). My work around is to add each directory manually to my org-agenda-list, but it's annoying and I know I've probably forgotten some. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Answer 1

Haven't seen other people post this, so I will do. Have you tried load "find-list" library and use its "find-lisp-find-files" function? I added these lines in my org config and it works, but it may not fit your performance requirement:

(load-library "find-lisp") (setq org-agenda-files (find-lisp-find-files "FOLDERNAME" "\.org$"))

source: http://emacs-orgmode.gnu.narkive.com/n5bQRs5t/o-multiple-recursive-directories-with-org-agenda-files

Answer 2

The following code works well in emacs 24.3+:

;; Collect all .org from my Org directory and subdirs
(setq org-agenda-file-regexp "\\`[^.].*\\.org\\'") ; default value
(defun load-org-agenda-files-recursively (dir) "Find all directories in DIR."
    (unless (file-directory-p dir) (error "Not a directory `%s'" dir))
    (unless (equal (directory-files dir nil org-agenda-file-regexp t) nil)
      (add-to-list 'org-agenda-files dir)
    )
    (dolist (file (directory-files dir nil nil t))
        (unless (member file '("." ".."))
            (let ((file (concat dir file "/")))
                (when (file-directory-p file)
                    (load-org-agenda-files-recursively file)
                )
            )
        )
    )
)
(load-org-agenda-files-recursively "/path/to/your/org/dir/" ) ; trailing slash required

It does not require intermediate files creation and you can put it on a shortcut as well.

To be able to refile to any file found add this:

(setq org-refile-targets
      '((nil :maxlevel . 3)
        (org-agenda-files :maxlevel . 1)))