Alternative for "descend" in the context of computer file systems

Solution 1:

Descend is perfectly fine, and doesn’t imply an up-down direction - rather, as a child is a descendant of his parents, so too is a child node viewed as a descendant of the parent node, with the root node being the parent of the entire file system. Just as you descend your family tree from your apical ancestors, you descend the file system tree from the apical root node. This is signalling a hierarchical relationship, not a directional one.

Solution 2:

Traverse is a good, general word, so probably not quite what you are after. This article on tree traversal avoids the use of descend completely - not sure if that is deliberate or not.

How about "enter" or even just "go in to"?

Solution 3:

Can't help but shout it: DRILL DOWN

And look, there is even a drill down tree!

Drill-down is an action that will provide more details about data. Drilling down through a dimension hierarchy will expand next level of the dimension. It can be compared to browsing through your directory structure.

drill down tree

Drill down, as opposed to top level

Solution 4:

Progress or proceed both work in this sense, with proceed being a little more action-oriented:

Progress through the file tree.

Or:

Proceed into the subdirectory and execute the file named...

Those are both somewhat formal, though I do like proceed.

If I were using everyday language to tell someone what to do in, for instance, a remote session (which I do for my job occasionally), I'd simply say:

"Go into the subdirectory and..."

Then perhaps later I would say:

"Okay, now go back out to the main folder and...".

But you've indicated you want something better than go, so proceed would be a good option.