Delete all files of specific type extension recursively down a directory using a batch file

Question

I need to delete all  jpg and  txt files  for example  in dir1 and dir2    What I tried was    echo off FOR   p IN  C  testFolder D  testFolder  DO FOR   t IN    jpg   txt  DO del  s   p   t   In some directories it worked  in others it didn t    For example  this didn t do anything    echo off FOR   p IN  C  Users vexe Pictures sample  DO FOR   t IN    jpg  DO del  s   p   t   What I m I missing in the second snippet  Why didn t it work

User · Answer

You can use this to delete ALL Files Inside a Folder and Subfolders:

DEL "C:\Folder\*.*" /S /Q

Or use this to Delete Certain File Types Only:

DEL "C:\Folder\*.mp4" /S /Q 
DEL "C:\Folder\*.dat" /S /Q

User · Answer

If you are trying to delete certain  extensions in the C  drive use this cmd   del  s c    blaawbg   I had a customer that got a encryption virus and i needed to find all junk files and delete them

User · Answer

this is it    echo off     del ext call  del ext    txt  call  del ext    png  call  del ext    jpg      funcion del ext  echo off pause goto eof  del ext  set del ext  1  del  f  q  folder path  del ext   goto eof   pd  replace folder path with your folder

User · Answer

You can use wildcards with the del command  and  S to do it recursively  del  S   jpg Addendum  BmyGuest asked why a downvoted answer  del  s c    blaawbg  was any different than my answer  There s a huge difference between running del  S   jpg and del  S C    jpg  The first command is executed from the current location  whereas the second is executed on the whole drive  In the scenario where you delete jpg files using the second command  some applications might stop working  and you ll end up losing all your family pictures  This is utterly annoying  but your computer will still be able to run  However  if you are working on some project  and want to delete all your dll files in myProject dll  and run the following batch file   echo off  REM This short script will only remove dlls from my project    or will it   cd  myProject dll del  S  Q C    dll  Then you end up removing all dll files form your C   drive  All of your applications stop working  your computer becomes useless  and at the next reboot you are teleported in the fourth dimension where you will be stuck for eternity  The lesson here is not to run such command directly at the root of a drive  or in any other location that might be dangerous  such as  windir   if you can avoid it  Always run them as locally as possible  Addendum 2 The wildcard method will try to match all file names  in their 8 3 format  and their  quot long name quot  format  For example    dll will match project dll and project dllold  which can be surprising  See this answer on SU for more detailed information

User · Answer

I don t have enough reputation to add comment  so I posted this as an answer  But for original issue with this command    echo off FOR   p IN  C  Users vexe Pictures sample  DO FOR   t IN    jpg  DO del  s   p   t   The first For is lacking recursive syntax  it should be    echo off FOR  R   p IN  C  Users vexe Pictures sample  DO FOR   t IN    jpg  DO del  s   p   t   You can just do   FOR   p IN  C  Users 0300092544 Downloads Ces Sce 600  DO  ECHO   p   to show the actual output

User · Answer

I wrote a batch script a while ago that allows you to pick a file extension to delete  The script will look in the folder it is in and all subfolders for any file with that extension and delete it    ECHO OFF CLS  SET found 0 ECHO Enter the file extension you want to delete    SET  p ext   gt     IF EXIST    ext              rem Check if there are any in the current folder      DEL    ext    SET found 1   FOR  D  R   G IN       DO    rem Iterate through all subfolders   IF EXIST   G CD   G   IF EXIST    ext        DEL    ext      SET found 1        IF  found   1     ECHO    ECHO Deleted all   ext  files    ECHO    ELSE     ECHO    ECHO There were no   ext  files    ECHO Nothing has been deleted    ECHO     PAUSE EXIT   Hope this comes in useful to anyone who wants it

[batch-file] Delete all files of specific type (extension) recursively down a directory using a batch file

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