How to delete empty folders using windows command prompt

Question

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

User · Answer

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    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    amp  amp  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    amp  amp  PAUSE  Rename the  txt extension to  reg  Double click to import

User · Answer

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

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This can be easily done by using rd command with two parameters  rd  lt folder gt   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

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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

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echo off set  p  ipa  ENTER FOLDER NAME TO DELETE gt    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  gt  NUL rd  ipad   s  q ren ccooppyy  ipad  cls echo SUCCESS  PRESS ANY KEY TO EXIT pause  gt  NUL exit   notfound echo I COULDN T FIND THE FOLDER  ipad  pause exit

User · Answer

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

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for  f  usebackq    d in    dir  ad b s   sort  R    do rd    d    from  http   blogs msdn com b oldnewthing archive 2008 04 17 8399914 aspx  Of course I d test it first without deleting before I do that command  Also  here s a modded version from the comments that includes folders with spaces    for  f  usebackq delims     d in    dir  ad b s   sort  R    do rd    d    P S  there are more comments in the blog post that might help you out so be sure to read those too before you try this out

User · Answer

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

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You don t need usebackq   FOR  F delims     A IN   DIR AD B S  SORT R   DO RD    A

User · Answer

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

User · Answer

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

User · Answer

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

User · Answer

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

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

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