How to solve The directory is not empty error when running rmdir command in a batch script

Question

I am making a batch script and part of the script is trying to remove a directory and all of its sub-directories  I am getting an intermittent error about a sub-directory not being empty  I read one article about indexing being the culprit  I disabled WSearch but I eventually got the error again  Here s the command  rmdir  S  Q  quot C   lt dir gt   quot

User · Answer

What worked for me is the following  I appears like the RMDir command will issue    The directory is not empty    nearly all the time      Cleanup Temporary Files and Folders  Erase  F  S  Q C  MyDir  RMDir  S  Q C  MyDir If  Exist  C  MyDir  GoTo Cleanup Temporary Files and Folders

User · Answer

I can think of the following possible causes    there are files or subdirectories which need higher permissions there are files in use  not only by WSearch  but maybe by your virus scanner or anything else   For 1   you can try runas  user Administrator in order to get higher privileges or start the batch file as administrator via context menu  If that doesn t help  maybe even the administrator doesn t have the rights  Then you need to take over the ownership of the directory   For 2   download Process Explorer  click Find Find handle or DLL    or press Ctrl F  type the name of the directory and find out who uses it  Close the application which uses the directory  if possible

User · Answer

Im my case i just moved the folder to root directory like so   move  lt source directory gt  c     And then ran the command to remove the directory  rmdir c   lt moved directory gt   s  q

User · Answer

Similar to Harry Johnston s answer  I loop until it works    set dirPath C  temp mytest  removedir if exist   dirPath         rd  s  q   dirPath        goto removedir

User · Answer

enter the Command Prompt as Admin and run  rmdir  s  lt FOLDER gt

User · Answer

I had a similar problem  tried to delete an empty folder via windows explorer  Showed me the not empty error  so I thought I try it via admin cmd  but none of the answers here helped    After I moved a file into the empty folder  I was able to delete the non empty folder

User · Answer

The reason rd  s refuses to delete certain files is most likely due to READONLY file attributes on files in the directory   The proper way to fix this  is to make sure you reset the attributes on all files first   attrib -r  directory   s  d rd  s  directory    There could be others such as hidden or system files  so if you want to play it safe   attrib -h -r -s  directory   s  d rd  s  directory

User · Answer

Windows sometimes is  broken by design   so you need to create an empty folder  and then mirror the  broken folder  with an  empty folder  with backup mode   robocopy - cmd copy utility   copyall - copies everything  mir deletes item if there is no such item in source a k a mirrors source with destination  b works around premissions shenanigans   Create en empty dir like this   mkdir empty   overwrite broken folder with empty like this   robocopy  copyall  mir  b empty broken   and then delete that folder  rd broken  s rd empty  s   If this does not help  try restarting in  recovery mode with command prompt  by holding shift when clicking restart and trying to run these command again in recovery mode

User · Answer

I experienced the same issues as Harry Johnston has mentioned  rmdir  s  q would complain that a directory was not empty even though  s is meant to do the emptying for you  I think it s a bug in Windows  personally   My workaround is to del everything in the directory before deleting the directory itself   del  f  s  q mydir 1 gt nul rmdir  s  q mydir    The 1 gt nul hides the standard output of del because otherwise  it lists every single file it deletes

User · Answer

I just encountered the same problem and it had to do with some files being lost or corrupted  To correct the issue  just run check disk   chkdsk  F e    This can be run from the search windows box or from a cmd prompt  The  F fixes any issues it finds  like recovering the files  Once this finishes running  you can delete the files and folders like normal

User · Answer

As  gfullam stated in a comment to  BoffinbraiN s answer  the  lt dir gt  you are deleting itself might not be the one which contains files  there might be subdirectories in  lt dir gt  that get a  The directory is not empty  message and the only solution then would be to recursively iterate over the directories  manually deleting all their containing files    I ended up deciding to use a port of rm from UNIX  rm exe comes with Git Bash  MinGW  Cygwin  GnuWin32 and others  You just need to have its parent directory in your PATH and then execute as you would in a UNIX system   Batch script example   set PATH C  cygwin64 bin  PATH  rm -rf  C   lt dir gt

User · Answer

I m familiar with this problem   The simplest workaround is to conditionally repeat the operation   I ve never seen it fail twice in a row - unless there actually is an open file or a permissions issue  obviously   rd  s  q c  deleteme if exist c  deleteme rd  s  q c  deleteme

User · Answer

I had  quot C  Users User Name OneDrive Fonts quot   which was mklink ed    D   to  quot C  Windows Fonts quot   and I got the same problem  In my case  cd  quot C  Users User Name OneDrive quot  rd  s Fonts Y  to confirm the action   helped me  I hope  that it helps you too  D

[windows] How to solve "The directory is not empty" error when running rmdir command in a batch script?

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