[windows] How to delete empty folders using windows command prompt?

I need to delete all empty folders from my application folder using windows command prompt?

How can I create a bat file like that?

Please help me.

A simpler way is to do xcopy to make a copy of the entire directory structure using /s switch. help for /s says Copies directories and subdirectories except empty ones.

xcopy dirA dirB /S

where dirA is source with Empty folders. DirB will be the copy without empty folders

from the command line: for /R /D %1 in (*) do rd "%1"

in a batch file for /R /D %%1 in (*) do rd "%%1"

I don't know if it's documented as such, but it works in W2K, XP, and Win 7. And I don't know if it will always work, but it won't ever delete files by accident.

Install any UNIX interpreter for windows (Cygwin or Git Bash) and run the cmd:

find /path/to/directory -empty -type d

To find them

find /path/to/directory -empty -type d -delete

To delete them

(not really using the windows cmd prompt but it's easy and took few seconds to run)

This is a hybird of the above. It removes ALL files older than X days and removes any empty folders for the given path. To use simply set the days, folderpath and drive

@echo off
SETLOCAL
set days=30
set folderpath=E:\TEST\
set drive=E:

::Delete files
forfiles -p %folderpath% -s -d -%days% -c "cmd /c del /q @path "

::Delete folders
cd %folderpath%
%drive%
for /f "usebackq delims=" %%d in (`"dir /ad/b/s | sort /R"`) do rd "%%d"`

If you want to use Varun's ROBOCOPY command line in the Explorer context menu (i.e. right-click) here is a Windows registry import. I tried adding this as a comment to his answer, but the inline markup wasn't feasible.

I've tested this on my own Windows 10 PC, but use at your own risk. It will open a new command prompt, run the command, and pause so you can see the output.

1. Copy into a new text file:

   Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

   [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\directory\Background\shell\Delete Empty Folders\command] @="C:\Windows\System32\Cmd.exe /C \"C:\Windows\System32\Robocopy.exe \"%V\" \"%V\" /s /move\" && PAUSE"

   [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\directory\shell\Delete Empty Folders\command] @="C:\Windows\System32\Cmd.exe /C \"C:\Windows\System32\Robocopy.exe \"%V\" \"%V\" /s /move\" && PAUSE"

2. Rename the .txt extension to .reg

3. Double click to import.

You don't need usebackq:

FOR /F delims^= %%A IN ('DIR/AD/B/S^|SORT/R') DO RD "%%A"

well, just a quick and dirty suggestion for simple 1-level directory structure without spaces, [edit] and for directories containing only ONE type of files that I found useful (at some point from http://www.pcreview.co.uk/forums/can-check-if-folder-empty-bat-file-t1468868.html):

for /f %a in ('dir /ad/b') do if not exist %a\*.xml echo %a Empty

/ad : shows only directory entries
/b : use bare format (just names)

[edit] using plain asterisk to check for ANY file (%a\* above) won't work, thanks for correction

therefore, deleting would be:

for /f %a in ('dir /ad/b') do if not exist %a\*.xml rmdir %a

It will be worked fine. This is best way to delete old files and remove empty directories recursively. following .bat file is,

forfiles /p [PATH] /s /m [FILE-PATTERN] /d -[DAYS] /c "cmd /c del @path"
for /f "delims=" %%d in ('dir [PATH] /s /b /ad ^| sort /r') do rd "%%d"

The placeholders needs to be replaced as follows (without the quotation marks):

[DAYS] = Max. age of the files in days, e.g. “10”
[PATH] = Path to search for old files and empty folders, e.g. “C:\Backup\”
[FILE-PATTERN] = Pattern that matches files to delete, e.g. “*.bkp”

The script has been successfully tested under Windows 7 and Windows Server 2003.

You can use the ROBOCOPY command. It is very simple and can also be used to delete empty folders inside large hierarchy.

ROBOCOPY folder1 folder1 /S /MOVE

Here both source and destination are folder1, as you only need to delete empty folders, instead of moving other(required) files to different folder. /S option is to skip copying(moving - in the above case) empty folders. It is also faster as the files are moved inside the same drive.

This can be easily done by using rd command with two parameters:

rd <folder> /Q /S

• /Q - Quiet mode, do not ask if ok to remove a directory tree with /S

• /S - Removes all directories and files in the specified directory in addition to the directory itself. Used to remove a directory tree.

@echo off
set /p "ipa= ENTER FOLDER NAME TO DELETE> "
set ipad="%ipa%"
IF not EXIST %ipad% GOTO notfound
IF EXIST %ipad% GOTO found
:found
echo DONOT CLOSE THIS WINDOW
md ccooppyy
xcopy %ipad%\*.* ccooppyy /s > NUL
rd %ipad% /s /q
ren ccooppyy %ipad%
cls
echo SUCCESS, PRESS ANY KEY TO EXIT
pause > NUL
exit 
:notfound
echo I COULDN'T FIND THE FOLDER %ipad%
pause
exit

Adding to corroded answer from the same referenced page is a PowerShell version http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2008/04/17/8399914.aspx#8408736

Get-ChildItem -Recurse . | where { $_.PSISContainer -and @( $_ | Get-ChildItem ).Count -eq 0 } | Remove-Item

or, more tersely,

gci -R . | where { $_.PSISContainer -and @( $_ | gci ).Count -eq 0 } | ri

credit goes to the posting author