Batch file Delete all files and folders in a directory

Question

I want to have a batch file that will delete all the folders and files in my cache folder for my wireless toolkit   Currently I have the following   cd  C  Users tbrollo j2mewtk 2 5 2 appdb RMS  del   db   This will delete all  db files in my RMS directory  however I want to delete every single thing from this directory  How can I do this

User · Answer

You cannot delete everything with either rmdir or del alone:

rmdir /s /q does not accept wildcard params. So rmdir /s /q * will error.
del /s /f /q will delete all files, but empty subdirectories will remain.

My preferred solution (as I have used in many other batch files) is:

rmdir /s /q . 2>NUL

User · Answer

del     will only delete files  but not subdirectories  To nuke the contents of a directory  you can use this script    echo off setlocal enableextensions if   1      goto  HELP if   1        goto  HELP goto  START   HELP echo Usage    n0 directory-name echo  echo Empties the contents of the specified directory  echo WITHOUT CONFIRMATION  USE EXTREME CAUTION  goto  DONE   START pushd  1    goto  DONE rd  q  s   2 gt  NUL popd   DONE endlocal   The pushd changes into the directory of which you want to delete the children  Then when rd asks to delete the current directory and all sub directories  the deletion of the sub directories succeed  but the deletion of the current directory fails - because we are in it  This produces an error which 2 gt  NUL swallows   2 being the error stream

User · Answer

set  DIR TO DELETE your path to the folder   IF EXIST  DIR TO DELETE        FOR  D   p IN    DIR TO DELETE        DO rmdir    p   S  Q     del  DIR TO DELETE       F  Q

User · Answer

You can do this using del and the  S flag  to tell it to recurse all files from all subdirectories    del  S C  Path to directory     The RD command can also be used  Recursively delete quietly without a prompt    RD  S  Q  VAR PATH    Rmdir  rd

User · Answer

I just put this together from what morty346 posted   set folder  C  test  IF EXIST   folder         cd  d  folder      for  F  delims     i in   dir  b   do  rmdir    i   s q    del    i   s q      It adds a quick check that the folder defined in the variable exists first  changes directory to the folder  and deletes the contents

User · Answer

echo off  color 0A  echo Deleting logs  rmdir  S Q c  log   ping 1 1 1 1 -n 5 -w 1000  gt  nul  echo Adding log folder back  md c  log    You was on the right track  Just add code to add the folder which is deleted back again

User · Answer

del     instead of del   db  That will remove everything

User · Answer

IF EXIST  C  Users tbrollo j2mewtk 2 5 2 appdb RMS        rmdir  C  Users tbrollo j2mewtk 2 5 2 appdb RMS   s  q     This will delete everything from the folder  and the folder itself

User · Answer

Use  set dir  Your Folder Path Here  rmdir  s  dir  mkdir  dir    This version deletes without asking   set dir  Your Folder Here  rmdir  s  q  dir  mkdir  dir    Example   set dir  C  foo1 foo foo foo3  rmdir  s  q  dir  mkdir  dir    This will clear C  foo1 foo foo foo3    I would like to mention Abdullah Sabouin s answer  There was a mix up about me copying him  I did not notice his post  I would like to thank you melpomene for pointing out errors

User · Answer

Just a modified version of GregM s answer   set folder  C  test  cd  D  folder  if NOT  errorlevel     0  exit  b 1  echo Entire content of  cd  will be deleted  Press Ctrl-C to abort pause  REM First the directories  ad option of dir for  F  delims     i in   dir  b  ad   do  echo rmdir    i   s q   REM Now the files  a-d option of dir for  F  delims     i in   dir  b  a-d   do  echo del    i   q   REM To deactivate simulation mode remove the word  echo  before  rmdir  and  del

User · Answer

Use    Create a batch file Copy the below text into the batch file  set folder  C  test  cd  d  folder  for  F  delims     i in   dir  b   do  rmdir    i   s q    del    i   s q     It will delete all files and folders

User · Answer

Better yet  let s say I want to remove everything under the C  windows temp folder    echo off rd C  windows temp  s  q

User · Answer

You could use robocopy to mirror an empty folder to the folder you are clearing   robocopy  C  temp empty   C  temp target   E  MIR   It also works if you can t remove or recreate the actual folder   It does require an existing empty directory

User · Answer

Try the following  it works for me   I have an application which dumps data in my  C  tmp  folder  and the following works the best for me  It doesn t even ask Yes or No to delete the data  I have made a schedule for it to run after every 5 minutes  cd  C  tmp   del      Q

[batch-file] Batch file. Delete all files and folders in a directory

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