How to fully clean bin and obj folders within Visual Studio

Question

If you right click on a folder  you will see a  Clean  menu item  I assumed this would clean  remove  the obj and bin directory  However  as far as I can see  it does nothing   Is there another way   please don t tell me to go to Windows Explorer or the cmd exe  I d like to remove the obj and bin folder so that I can easily zip the whole thing

User · Answer

As others have responded already Clean will remove all artifacts that are generated by the build. But it will leave behind everything else.

If you have some customizations in your MSBuild project this could spell trouble and leave behind stuff you would think it should have deleted.

You can circumvent this problem with a simple change to your .*proj by adding this somewhere near the end :

<Target Name="SpicNSpan"
        AfterTargets="Clean">
    <RemoveDir Directories="$(OUTDIR)"/>
</Target>

Which will remove everything in your bin folder of the current platform/configuration.

------ Edit Slight evolution based on Shaman's answer below (share the votes and give him some too)

<Target Name="SpicNSpan"  AfterTargets="Clean">
    <!-- Remove obj folder -->
    <RemoveDir Directories="$(BaseIntermediateOutputPath)" />
    <!-- Remove bin folder -->
    <RemoveDir Directories="$(BaseOutputPath)" />
</Target>

---- Edit again with parts from xDisruptor but I removed the .vs deletion as this would be better served in a .gitignore (or equivalent)

Updated for VS 2015.

<Target Name="SpicNSpan" AfterTargets="Clean"> <!-- common vars https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/c02as0cs.aspx?f=255&MSPPError=-2147217396 -->
     <RemoveDir Directories="$(TargetDir)" /> <!-- bin -->
     <RemoveDir Directories="$(ProjectDir)$(BaseIntermediateOutputPath)" /> <!-- obj -->
</Target>

He also provides a good suggestion on making the task easier to deploy and maintain if you have multiple projects to push this into.

If you vote this answer be sure to vote them both as well.

User · Answer

Based on Joe answer  I ve converted the VB code into C          lt summary gt      Based on code of VSProjCleaner tool  C  2005 Francesco Balena  Code Archirects      lt  summary gt  static class VisualStudioCleaner       public static void Process string rootDir                   Read all the folder names in the specified directory tree         string   dirNames   Directory GetDirectories rootDir         SearchOption AllDirectories           List lt string gt  errorsList   new List lt string gt                 delete any  suo and csproj user file         foreach  string dir in dirNames                var files   new List lt string gt                 files AddRange Directory GetFiles dir     suo                 files AddRange Directory GetFiles dir     user                 foreach  string fileName in files                    try                       Console Write  Deleting  0        fileName                       File Delete fileName                       Console WriteLine  DONE                      catch  Exception ex                        Console WriteLine                        Console WriteLine   ERROR   0    ex Message                       errorsList Add fileName          ex Message                                                         Delete all the BIN and OBJ subdirectories         foreach  string dir in dirNames                string dirName   Path GetFileName dir  ToLower                if  dirName     bin     dirName     obj                     try                       Console Write  Deleting  0        dir                       Directory Delete dir  true                       Console WriteLine  DONE                      catch  Exception ex                        Console WriteLine                        Console WriteLine   ERROR   0    ex Message                       errorsList Add dir          ex Message                                                     Console WriteLine new string  -   60            if  errorsList Count    0                Console WriteLine  All directories and files were removed successfully              else               Console WriteLine   0  directories or directories couldn t be removed   errorsList Count               Console WriteLine new string  -   60                foreach  string msg in errorsList                    Console WriteLine msg

User · Answer

This site  https   sachabarbs wordpress com 2014 10 24 powershell-to-clean-visual-studio-binobj-folders  uses William Kempf s powershell commands to remove any bin and obj folders from the current directory and sub directories  It should be possible to run it from the root of the drive   Here is William s version   gci -inc bin obj -rec   rm -rec -force   In William s own words      That wipes out all of the    bin    and    obj    directories in the current   directory and every subdirectory  Super useful to run in your   workspace directory to get to a    clean    state  especially when someone   messes up and there   s something that a Clean or Rebuild inside the IDE   doesn   t catch       For those of you reading that may not know  PowerShell supports   command aliases  here it is rewritten again not using the aliases  Get-ChildItem -inc bin obj -rec   Remove-Item -rec -force       NOTE   You should have this stored in a PowerShell file and place that   file at the root of your solution  where the  sln file resides   and   then run it when you want a proper clean  not the micky mouse one that   VisualStudio does  and reports success too

User · Answer

In windows just open the explorer navigate to your SLN folder click into search field and type kind  folder obj --  for obj folders use CTRL A and delete  em - same for bin Done  No need for any tool or extra software

User · Answer

Just an addendum to all the fine answers above in case someone doesn t realize how easy it is in VB C  to automate the entire process down to the zip archive    So you just grab a simple Forms app from the templates  if you don t already have a housekeeping app  and add a button to it and then ClickOnce install it to your desktop without worrying about special settings or much of anything  This is all the code you need to attach to the button   Imports System IO Compression  Private Sub btnArchive Click sender As Object  e As EventArgs  Handles btnArchive Click     Dim src As String    C  Project      Dim dest As String   Path Combine  D  Archive    Stub   amp  Now ToString  yyyyMMddHHmmss    amp    zip       If IsProjectOpen   Then  You don t want Visual Studio holding a lock on anything while you re deleting folders         MsgBox  Close projects first   expletive deleted    vbOKOnly          Exit Sub     End If     If MsgBox  Are you sure you want to delete bin and obj folders    vbOKCancel    DialogResult Cancel Then Exit Sub     If ClearBinAndObj src  Then ZipFile CreateFromDirectory src  dest  End Sub  Public Function ClearBinAndObj targetDir As String  As Boolean     Dim dirstodelete As New List Of String      For Each d As String In My Computer FileSystem GetDirectories targetDir  FileIO SearchOption SearchAllSubDirectories   bin           dirstodelete Add d      Next     For Each d As String In My Computer FileSystem GetDirectories targetDir  FileIO SearchOption SearchAllSubDirectories   obj           dirstodelete Add d      Next     For Each d In dirstodelete         Try             Directory Delete d  True          Catch ex As Exception             If MsgBox  Error     amp  ex Message  amp    - OK to continue    vbOKCancel    MsgBoxResult Cancel Then Return False         End Try     Next     Return True End Function  Public Function IsProjectOpen       For Each clsProcess As Process In Process GetProcesses           If clsProcess ProcessName Equals  devenv   Then Return True     Next     Return False End Function   One thing to remember is that file system deletes can go wrong easily  One of my favorites was when I realized that I couldn t delete a folder because it contained items created by Visual Studio while running with elevated privileges  so that I could debug a service     I needed to manually give permission or  I suppose  run the app with elevated privileges also  Either way  I think there is some value in using an interactive GUI-based approach over a script  specially since this is likely something that is done at the end of a long day and you don t want to find out later that your backup doesn t actually exist

User · Answer

Update  Visual Studio 2019  Clean  bin  and  obj  before release   However I am not sure if  obj  needs to be deleted  Be aware there is nuget package configuration placed too  You can remove the second line if you think so   lt Target Name  quot PreBuild quot  BeforeTargets  quot PreBuildEvent quot  Condition  quot    Configuration       Release  quot  gt     lt  --remove bin-- gt     lt Exec Command  quot rd  s  q  amp quot   ProjectDir   BaseOutputPath  amp quot   amp amp  amp amp    quot    gt     lt  --remove obj-- gt     lt Exec Command  quot rd  s  q  amp quot   BaseIntermediateOutputPath Release amp quot  quot    gt   lt  Target gt

User · Answer

If you are using git and have a correct  gitignore in your project  you can   git clean -xdf --dry-run   to remove absolutely every file on the  gitignore list  i e  it will clean obj  and bin folders  the x triggers this behavior

User · Answer

This is how I do with a batch file to delete all BIN and OBJ folders recursively    Create an empty file and name it DeleteBinObjFolders bat Copy-paste code the below code into the DeleteBinObjFolders bat Move the DeleteBinObjFolders bat file in the same folder with your solution    sln  file     echo off  echo Deleting all BIN and OBJ folders    for  d  r     d in  bin obj  do  if exist    d  rd  s q    d   echo BIN and OBJ folders successfully deleted    Close the window  pause  gt  nul

User · Answer

Check out Ron Jacobs fantastic open source CleanProject It even takes care of the zipping if you like   Here is the CodePlex link

User · Answer

For Visual Studio 2015 the MSBuild variables have changed a bit        lt Target Name  SpicNSpan  AfterTargets  Clean  gt   lt  -- common vars https   msdn microsoft com en-us library c02as0cs aspx f 255 amp MSPPError -2147217396 -- gt            lt RemoveDir Directories    TargetDir     gt   lt  -- bin -- gt            lt RemoveDir Directories    SolutionDir  vs    gt   lt  --  vs -- gt            lt RemoveDir Directories    ProjectDir   BaseIntermediateOutputPath     gt   lt  -- obj -- gt     lt  Target gt    Notice that this snippet also wipes out the  vs folder from the root directory of your solution  You may want to comment out the associated line if you feel that removing the  vs folder is an overkill  I have it enabled because I noticed that in some third party projects it causes issues when files ala application config exist inside the  vs folder   Addendum   If you are into optimizing the maintainability of your solutions you might want to take things one step further and place the above snippet into a separate file like so      lt Project xmlns  http   schemas microsoft com developer msbuild 2003  gt          lt Target Name  SpicNSpan  AfterTargets  Clean  gt   lt  -- common vars https   msdn microsoft com en-us library c02as0cs aspx f 255 amp MSPPError -2147217396 -- gt               lt RemoveDir Directories    TargetDir     gt   lt  -- bin -- gt               lt RemoveDir Directories    SolutionDir  vs    gt   lt  --  vs -- gt               lt RemoveDir Directories    ProjectDir   BaseIntermediateOutputPath     gt   lt  -- obj -- gt          lt  Target gt     lt  Project gt    And then include this file at the very end of each and every one of your   csproj files like so                    lt Import Project        Tools ExtraCleanup targets   gt     lt  Project gt    This way you can enrich or fine-tune your extra-cleanup-logic centrally  in one place without going through the pains of manually editing each and every   csproj file by hand every time you want to make an improvement

User · Answer

You can easily find and remove bin and obj folders in Far Manager    Navigate to you solution and press Alt F7 In search setting dialog    Type  bin obj  in field  A file mask or several file masks  Check option  Search for folders  Press Enter  After the search is done  switch view to  Panel   Select all files  with Ctrl A  and delete folders  press  Shift Del     Hope it helps someone

User · Answer

I store my finished VS projects by saving only source code   I delete BIN  DEBUG  RELEASE  OBJ  ARM and  vs folders from all projects   This reduces the size of the project considerably   The project  must be rebuilt when pulled out of storage

User · Answer

It doesn t remove the folders  but it does remove the build by-products   Is there any reason you want the actual build folders removed

User · Answer

I can t add a comment yet  no minimal reputation reached  so I leave this reply to underline that   the  BeforeBuild  action with   lt RemoveDir Directories    BaseIntermediateOutputPath     gt  is great but  for me  is conflicting with an Entity Framework model included into the same project   The error I receive is     Error reading resource   mymodel  csdl  --  Could not find a part of the path   myprojectpath  obj Release edmxResourcesToEmbed  mymodel  csdl   I suppose  the  edmxResourcesToembed  is created before the  BeforeBuild  target action is executed

User · Answer

To delete bin and obj before build add to project file    lt Target Name  BeforeBuild  gt       lt  -- Remove obj folder -- gt       lt RemoveDir Directories    BaseIntermediateOutputPath     gt       lt  -- Remove bin folder -- gt       lt RemoveDir Directories    BaseOutputPath     gt   lt  Target gt    Here is article  How to remove bin and or obj folder before the build or deploy

User · Answer

I use VisualStudioClean which is easy to understand and predictable  Knowing how it works and what files it is going to delete relieves me   Previously I tried VSClean  note VisualStudioClean is not VSClean   VSClean is more advanced  it has many configurations that sometimes makes me wondering what files it is going to delete  One mis-configuration will result in lose of my source codes  Testing how the configuration will work need backing up all my projects which take a lot of times  so in the end I choose VisualStudioClean instead   Conclusion   VisualStudioClean if you want basic cleaning  VSClean for more complex scenario

User · Answer

Visual Studio Extension  Right Click Solution - Select  quot Delete bin and obj folders quot

User · Answer

this answer is great I just want to comment on the last part of the answer  NOTE   You should have this stored in a PowerShell file and place that file at the root of your solution  where the  sln file resides   and then run it when you want a proper clean  not the micky mouse one that VisualStudio does  and reports success too    Alternatively  you can add the following to your profile ps1 function CleanSolution       Get-ChildItem -inc bin obj -rec   Remove-Item -rec -force    Set-Alias cs CleanSolution   Then you can use either CleanSolution or cs to run  That way you can use it for any project and without the    prefix of the filename

User · Answer

Clean will remove all intermediate and final files created by the build process  such as  obj files and  exe or  dll files   It does not  however  remove the directories where those files get built  I don t see a compelling reason why you need the directories to be removed  Can you explain further   If you look inside these directories before and after a  Clean   you should see your compiled output get cleaned up

[visual-studio] How to fully clean bin and obj folders within Visual Studio?

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