Right-click a folder, get its tree. Right-click any folder in File Explorer, choose Copy tree with Twig, and its structure is on your clipboard as a clean tree, ready to paste into a chat, a README, an issue or an AI prompt. It follows .gitignore the way Git does and always skips node_modules and .git, so you get the project and not the noise. With Twig in the tray, Ctrl+Alt+T does the same for the folder that's open in front: the tab you're on, or the one folder you've selected. Built light, on purpose: that's why it exists. Twig is one 5.7 MB exe with no installer, and no shell extension: nothing is loaded into Explorer. The right-click starts Twig, copies, and it's gone. Kept in the tray for the hotkey, it sleeps at 0% CPU in about 3 MB of memory. Twig is donationware. It's free to use, for good: no trial, no locked features, no account. If it saves you some typing, a small donation keeps the lab building more tools like it.

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✦ What you get

Right-click my-app, paste:

my-app/
├── .github/
│   └── workflows/
│       └── ci.yml
├── src/
│   ├── ui/
│   │   └── menu.rs
│   ├── config.rs
│   └── main.rs
├── tests/
│   └── smoke.rs
├── .gitignore
├── Cargo.toml
└── README.md

node_modules/ is on the skip list, and build/ and .env are in the project's .gitignore, so none of them made it in. Folders come first, names in natural order (file2 before file10).

✦ What it does

Featherweight	No shell extension, nothing loaded into Explorer: the menu entry is a few registry keys that start Twig, which copies and exits. In the tray for the hotkey it waits at zero CPU in about 3 MB.
Right-click, done	Copy tree with Twig on folders, on the empty space inside a folder (copies that folder) and on drives. On Windows 11 it's under Show more options, or hold Shift as you right-click.
The folder as Git sees it	.gitignore, .ignore and Git's own excludes are followed the way Git does (via ripgrep's ignore crate), in a repo or not. node_modules, .git, __pycache__, .venv and friends are always left out; the list is yours to change, * works.
A hotkey in Explorer	Ctrl+Alt+T copies the folder that's open in front. It knows which tab you're on, and with one folder selected it copies that one.
Three ways to write it	Tree like the tree command draws it, Markdown (the same tree in a ```text block, so READMEs, GitHub and Discord keep it lined up), or Paths, one per line (src/main.rs) for scripts and AI prompts.
Made for pasting	Long folders are cut to "… 312 more files", a line limit keeps a huge tree in check, and there's depth, folders-only and file sizes when you want them.
A card, not a pop-up	A small card shows the top of the tree, the counts and what was left out, with buttons to copy it again as Markdown or as paths, or View it whole. It never takes the keyboard and leaves by itself.
A live preview	The settings show a real folder's tree as you change them, so you know what you'll paste before you paste it.

_{A made-up project: the menu and the window are drawn for this picture; the card is drawn by Twig's own code.}

✦ A look inside

Settings (left-click the tray icon, or run Twig.exe again): Copy a tree: the right-click entry on or off, the hotkey, and whether a selected folder wins. Preview: any folder's tree with your settings, live, and a Copy button. What goes in: .gitignore, dot and hidden files, folders only, sizes, how deep, how long a folder may get, and the always-skip list. How it's written: Tree, Markdown or Paths, and a line limit. Behavior: Start with Windows, the card, the hello note, and taking Twig out of Windows again. Every change saves on its own; there's no Save button. The card after each copy (it fades away after five seconds, or stays while you point at it):

✦ Get started

1. Download Twig.exe, put it somewhere it can stay (a tools folder, Documents) and run it. There's nothing to install.
2. Windows may say it doesn't recognize the publisher yet (Twig isn't code-signed). Choose More info, then Run anyway.
3. Twig adds Copy tree with Twig to the right-click menu, settles into your tray and opens its settings once to say hello.
4. Right-click any folder, choose Copy tree with Twig (Windows 11: Show more options first), and paste it anywhere.
5. Want the hotkey every time? Turn on Start with Windows in the settings.

Moved Twig.exe? Run it once from its new place and the menu entry follows it.

The tray menu

Right-click the icon: Copy a folder's tree… (pick any folder) · Copy "my-app" again · Pause the hotkey · Settings… · Donate ♥ · Twig on the web · Quit Twig. Left-click opens the settings.

Command line

Twig.exe --copy "D:\Code\my-app"     copy a folder's tree (what the menu entry runs)
Twig.exe --settings                  the settings window
Twig.exe --uninstall                 out of the right-click menu and start-up, settings removed

System requirements

System	Windows 10 or 11, 64-bit
Processor	Anything that runs Windows 10
Memory	None for the right-click (Twig copies and exits); about 3 MB in the tray
Disk	One 5.7 MB file
Graphics	OpenGL 2 for the settings window (any GPU from the last decade)
Displays	Any number, any mix of scaling (per-monitor DPI aware)

✦ Light, measured

Light is the point of Twig, so here are the numbers, read from Windows' own counters on a 2019 ThinkPad (i5-10310U, Windows 11 24H2):

The right-click	starts, copies, exits: nothing stays running
Waiting in the tray for the hotkey	0% CPU: about 0.7 M CPU cycles in 10 seconds
Private memory at rest	3.1 MB
Handing a folder to the tray copy	122 ms from click to done
The exe	5.7 MB, one file, no installer

How it stays that light:

• The menu entry is plain registry keys under HKCU\Software\Classes (folders, folder backgrounds, drives) that run Twig.exe --copy "%V". No shell extension DLL, so nothing of Twig's is ever loaded into Explorer.
• If Twig is already in the tray, --copy hands the folder over with one WM_COPYDATA and exits; otherwise it does the copy itself, shows the card, and exits when the card is gone.
• The tray part is plain Win32: a hidden window with one RegisterHotKey, blocked in GetMessage until the key is pressed. No hooks, no polling, no timers while it waits.
• The hotkey asks Explorer which folder it shows over COM (IShellWindows → the active tab's IShellBrowser → IFolderView2), the same interface Explorer's own scripting uses.
• Folders are walked on a short-lived thread, capped at 100,000 entries; the card is drawn by Twig's own little renderer, and the settings window is a separate, short-lived process of the same exe (egui).

✦ Settings file

Everything lives in %APPDATA%\Twig\settings.toml (the settings window writes it; you can edit it by hand, then choose Settings in the tray to reload).

Key	Default	Meaning
hotkey	"Ctrl+Alt+T"	The Explorer hotkey; empty for none
paused	false	The hotkey does nothing (the right-click entry still works)
use_selection	true	With one folder selected, the hotkey copies that one
style	"tree"	tree, markdown or paths
gitignore	true	Follow .gitignore, .ignore and Git's excludes
hidden	true	Include dot files and hidden files
skip	.git, node_modules, …	Names always left out, anywhere in the tree; * works
folders_only	false	Just the folders
sizes	false	File sizes after each file
depth	0	Levels below the folder; 0 is all the way down
per_folder	40	Entries shown per folder before "… N more"; 0 for no limit
max_lines	1000	Lines in all before "… N more lines"; 0 for no limit
card	true	The card after each copy
hello_card	true	The donationware note when Twig starts

✦ Build it yourself

git clone https://github.com/AcidAlchamy/twig
cd twig
cargo build --release      # target/release/twig.exe
cargo test

Needs Rust 1.85 or newer and the MSVC build tools. The art is reproducible: python art/icons.py renders the icons (Chrome or Edge + Pillow), cargo test demo -- --ignored with TWIG_DEMO=art/build draws the card with Twig's own code, and python art/readme.py builds these pictures. tools/live-test drives a real Twig on a test PC (the right-click command, the hand-off, the hotkey with tabs and selection, a drive root, the card's buttons, idle cost, uninstall) and compares what lands on the clipboard with the expected trees.

✦ Donationware

Twig is free and open source under the MIT license. Use it at home, at work, on every PC you own. If it saves you some typing, please consider a donation: it's what pays for the next tool on the Donationware shelf.

_{Made by Acid Alchamy · see also Nab, the screenshot tool, and Shook, the mouse finder}