Vol Command Examples and Options

How to use the vol command in Windows

By
Tim Fisher
Photo of Tim Fisher, Lifewire GM and Writer
Tim Fisher
Senior Vice President & Group General Manager, Tech & Sustainability
  • Emporia State University

Tim Fisher has more than 30 years' of professional technology experience. He's been writing about tech for more than two decades and serves as the SVP and General Manager of Lifewire.

lifewire's editorial guidelines
Updated on August 5, 2022

The vol command is a Command Prompt command used to display a drive's volume label and volume serial number.

Vol Command Availability

The vol command is available from within the Command Prompt in all Windows operating systems including Windows 11, Windows 10, Windows 8, Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP, and older versions of Windows. 

The vol command is also a DOS command available in MS-DOS.

However, the availability of certain command switches and other command syntax differs from operating system to operating system.

Vol command in Windows 11

Vol Command Syntax

The vol command syntax in Windows takes the following form:

vol [drive:] [/?]

  • drive: The letter of the drive that you want to view the volume label and volume serial number for.
  • /? The help switch with the vol command to show detailed help about the command. Executing vol /? is the same as using the help command to execute help vol.

Vol Command Examples

Here are some examples that show how you might use this command:

Volume Details of a Different Drive 

vol e:

In this example, the command is used to display the volume label and volume serial number for the e drive. The result displayed on the screen will look something like this:

Volume in drive E is Seagate
Volume Serial Number is E096-4125

The volume label in this example is reported as Seagate and the volume serial number as E096-4125. Those results will differ when you run the vol command on your computer.

Volume Details of the Current Drive 

vol

Using the vol command without specifying a drive, like in this example and screenshot above, returns the volume label and volume serial number of the current drive. In this example, the C drive has the volume label of Windows, and the volume serial number is 06D4-EEBD: 

Volume in drive C is Windows
Volume Serial Number is 06D4-EEBD

Volume labels aren't required in any file system supported in Windows.

Vol-Related Commands

The volume label of a drive is necessary information for a few commands, including the format command and the convert command.

The dir command also shows the volume label and volume serial number of a drive before displaying the drive's contents.

Was this page helpful?