[windows] How do I make a Windows batch script completely silent?

There has been variants of this question asked for generations, but despite writing some quite complicated Windows scripts, I can't seem to find out how to make them actually silent.

The following is an excerpt from one of my current scripts:

@ECHO OFF
SET scriptDirectory=%~dp0
COPY %scriptDirectory%test.bat %scriptDirectory%test2.bat
FOR /F %%f IN ('dir /B "%scriptDirectory%*.noext"') DO (
del "%scriptDirectory%%%f"
)
ECHO

The result of this is:

C:\Temp> test.bat
        1 file(s) copied.
File Not Found
Echo is off.

C:\Temp>

Whereas the "1 file(s) copied." is just annoying, the "File Not Found" makes the user think that something has gone wrong (which it hasn't - no files is fine).

You can redirect stdout to nul to hide it.

COPY %scriptDirectory%test.bat %scriptDirectory%test2.bat >nul

Just add >nul to the commands you want to hide the output from.

Here you can see all the different ways of redirecting the std streams.

Copies a directory named html & all its contents to a destination directory in silent mode. If the destination directory is not present it will still create it.

@echo off
TITLE Copy Folder with Contents

set SOURCE=C:\labs
set DESTINATION=C:\Users\MyUser\Desktop\html

xcopy %SOURCE%\html\* %DESTINATION%\* /s /e /i /Y >NUL

1. /S Copies directories and subdirectories except empty ones.

2. /E Copies directories and subdirectories, including empty ones. Same as /S /E. May be used to modify /T.

3. /I If destination does not exist and copying more than one file, assumes that destination must be a directory.

4. /Y Suppresses prompting to confirm you want to overwrite an existing destination file.

Just add a >NUL at the end of the lines producing the messages.

For example,

COPY %scriptDirectory%test.bat %scriptDirectory%test2.bat >NUL

If you want that all normal output of your Batch script be silent (like in your example), the easiest way to do that is to run the Batch file with a redirection:

C:\Temp> test.bat >nul

This method does not require to modify a single line in the script and it still show error messages in the screen. To supress all the output, including error messages:

C:\Temp> test.bat >nul 2>&1

If your script have lines that produce output you want to appear in screen, perhaps will be simpler to add redirection to those lineas instead of all the lines you want to keep silent:

@ECHO OFF
SET scriptDirectory=%~dp0
COPY %scriptDirectory%test.bat %scriptDirectory%test2.bat
FOR /F %%f IN ('dir /B "%scriptDirectory%*.noext"') DO (
del "%scriptDirectory%%%f"
)
ECHO
REM Next line DO appear in the screen
ECHO Script completed >con

Antonio