What s the fastest way to delete a large folder in Windows

Question

I want to delete a folder that contains thousands of files and folders  If I use Windows Explorer to delete the folder it can take 10-15 minutes  not always  but often   Is there a faster way in Windows to delete folders    Other details    I don t care about the recycle bin  It s an NTFS drive

User · Accepted Answer

Using Windows Command Prompt  rmdir  s  q folder  Using Powershell  powershell -Command  quot Remove-Item -LiteralPath  folder  -Force -Recurse quot   Note that in more cases del and rmdir wil leave you with leftover files  where Powershell manages to delete the files

User · Answer

Try Shift   Delete  Did 24 000 files in 2 minutes for me

User · Answer

use the command prompt  as suggested   I figured out why explorer is so slow a while ago  it gives you an estimate of how long it will take to delete the files folders   To do this  it has to scan the number of items and the size   This takes ages  hence the ridiculous wait with large folders   Also  explorer will stop if there is a particular problem with a file

User · Answer

Try Shift   Delete  Did 24 000 files in 2 minutes for me

User · Answer

The worst way is to send to Recycle Bin  you still need to delete them  Next worst is shift delete with Windows Explorer  it wastes loads of time checking the contents before starting deleting anything    Next best is to use rmdir  s q foldername from the command line  del  f s q foldername is good too  but it leaves behind the directory structure   The best I ve found is a two line batch file with a first pass to delete files and outputs to nul to avoid the overhead of writing to screen for every singe file  A second pass then cleans up the remaining directory structure   del  f s q foldername  gt  nul rmdir  s q foldername   This is nearly three times faster than a single rmdir  based on time tests with a Windows XP encrypted disk  deleting  30GB 1 000 000 files 15 000 folders  rmdir takes  2 5 hours  del rmdir takes  53 minutes  More info at Super User    This is a regular task for me  so I usually move the stuff I need to delete to C  stufftodelete and have those del rmdir commands in a deletestuff bat batch file  This is scheduled to run at night  but sometimes I need to run it during the day so the quicker the better   Technet documentation for del command can be found here   Additional info on the parameters used above     f - Force  i e  delete files even if they re read only   s - Recursive   Include Subfolders  this definition from SS64  as technet simply states  specified files   which isn t helpful    q - Quiet  i e  do not prompt user for confirmation    Documentation for rmdir here   Parameters are     s - Recursive  i e  same as del s  s parameter   q - Quiet  i e  same as del s  q parameter

User · Answer

use the command prompt  as suggested   I figured out why explorer is so slow a while ago  it gives you an estimate of how long it will take to delete the files folders   To do this  it has to scan the number of items and the size   This takes ages  hence the ridiculous wait with large folders   Also  explorer will stop if there is a particular problem with a file

User · Answer

and to delete a lot of folders  you could also create a batch file with the command spdenne posted    1  make a text file that has the following contents replacing the folder names in quotes with your folder names   rmdir  s  q  My Apps    rmdir  s  q  My Documents    rmdir  s  q  My Pictures    rmdir  s  q  My Work Files    2  save the batch file with a  bat extension  for example deletefiles bat  3  open a command prompt  Start   Run   Cmd  and execute the batch file  you can do this like so from the command prompt  substituting X for your drive letter    X    deletefiles bat

User · Answer

use fastcopy  a free tool   it has a delete option that is a lot faster then the way windows deletes files

User · Answer

use fastcopy  a free tool   it has a delete option that is a lot faster then the way windows deletes files

User · Answer

use the command prompt  as suggested   I figured out why explorer is so slow a while ago  it gives you an estimate of how long it will take to delete the files folders   To do this  it has to scan the number of items and the size   This takes ages  hence the ridiculous wait with large folders   Also  explorer will stop if there is a particular problem with a file

User · Answer

and to delete a lot of folders  you could also create a batch file with the command spdenne posted    1  make a text file that has the following contents replacing the folder names in quotes with your folder names   rmdir  s  q  My Apps    rmdir  s  q  My Documents    rmdir  s  q  My Pictures    rmdir  s  q  My Work Files    2  save the batch file with a  bat extension  for example deletefiles bat  3  open a command prompt  Start   Run   Cmd  and execute the batch file  you can do this like so from the command prompt  substituting X for your drive letter    X    deletefiles bat

User · Answer

The worst way is to send to Recycle Bin  you still need to delete them  Next worst is shift delete with Windows Explorer  it wastes loads of time checking the contents before starting deleting anything    Next best is to use rmdir  s q foldername from the command line  del  f s q foldername is good too  but it leaves behind the directory structure   The best I ve found is a two line batch file with a first pass to delete files and outputs to nul to avoid the overhead of writing to screen for every singe file  A second pass then cleans up the remaining directory structure   del  f s q foldername  gt  nul rmdir  s q foldername   This is nearly three times faster than a single rmdir  based on time tests with a Windows XP encrypted disk  deleting  30GB 1 000 000 files 15 000 folders  rmdir takes  2 5 hours  del rmdir takes  53 minutes  More info at Super User    This is a regular task for me  so I usually move the stuff I need to delete to C  stufftodelete and have those del rmdir commands in a deletestuff bat batch file  This is scheduled to run at night  but sometimes I need to run it during the day so the quicker the better   Technet documentation for del command can be found here   Additional info on the parameters used above     f - Force  i e  delete files even if they re read only   s - Recursive   Include Subfolders  this definition from SS64  as technet simply states  specified files   which isn t helpful    q - Quiet  i e  do not prompt user for confirmation    Documentation for rmdir here   Parameters are     s - Recursive  i e  same as del s  s parameter   q - Quiet  i e  same as del s  q parameter

User · Answer

use the command prompt  as suggested   I figured out why explorer is so slow a while ago  it gives you an estimate of how long it will take to delete the files folders   To do this  it has to scan the number of items and the size   This takes ages  hence the ridiculous wait with large folders   Also  explorer will stop if there is a particular problem with a file

[windows] What's the fastest way to delete a large folder in Windows?

Using Windows Command Prompt:

Using Powershell:

Examples related to windows

Examples related to windows-xp

Examples related to file-management