Recursively delete empty directories in Windows

Question

I have a directory on my Windows 7 machine that has hundreds if not thousands of sub-directories. Some of them have files, some do not. I want to delete all the empty directories.

Looking at the del and rmdir DOS command, it does not look like you can recursively do this without deleting all the files. Is there a way to do this from the command line?

Answer 1

You can use Remove Empty Directories utility.

Alternatively you can use this one-liner batch file (from DownloadSquad):

for /f "delims=" %d in ('dir /s /b /ad ^| sort /r') do rd "%d"

(if used inside a batch file, replace %d with %%d)

This works because rd will not remove a directory that contains files.

Answer 2

You can also use ROBOCOPY. 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 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.

Answer 3

Since Cygwin comes with GNU find, you can do this:

find . -type d -empty -delete

Or to avoid the noise when a folder no longer exists:

find . -type d -empty -execdir rmdir {} +

Answer 4

Hmmm... maybe even simpler solution:

for /d /r %d in (*.*) do rd "%d"

Start this from the folder you want empty folders to be deleted.

/d - will work on folders, not files /r - will recurse subdirs

Answer 5

The free utility EmptyFolderNuker does this fine, from a base folder of your choice. It also removes those directories only containing empty sub-directories.

Answer 6

Combining Gareth's and G-Man's posts:

find . -depth -type d -empty -execdir rmdir {} +

Edit: But that gave a security error because of 'C' in my PATH var...so instead:

$find . -depth -type d -empty | while read dir; do (rmdir -v $dir); done

I don't use xargs because it appears to have an input line limit (of about 1024 lines, I think?), whereas

 while read x; do (command $x); done

just keeps on going for as long as it has input. Leave out the '-v' verbose flag if you don't want to see the results and/or want it to run faster.

Answer 7

None of the previous answers worked for me, so I made the following file:

EmptyDirectoriesRemove.cmd

Contents:

@setlocal enableextensions enabledelayedexpansion

:walk_tree
for /D %%d in (*) do (
cd %%d
@CALL :walk_tree %%d
cd ..
rd %%d
)

endlocal

Usage: Cd to the top level directory you want to clean up. From the command line prompt, run:

EmptyDirectoriesRemove.cmd

Warnings will show up for non-empty directories.

Usual disclaimers: Use at your risk. Backup before testing. etc.

Answer 8

The 4NT shell (nowadays Take Command) has a /sx option to "DEL". /S is recursive, the appended X is remove empty dirs.

Answer 9

You can use Powershell:

Get-ChildItem "Path" -recurse | 
  Where-Object {($_.PSIsContainer -eq $true) -and ((gci $_.fullName).count -eq 0)} | 
    Remove-Item -Force

Answer 10

You can use vbscript to do this:

' Save in deleteEmptyFolders.vbs
' call with:
' cscript deleteEmptyFolders.vbs C:\RootFolder
If WScript.Arguments.Count > 0 Then
  directory = WScript.Arguments.Item(0)
  WSH.Echo("Deleting empty folders starting from " & directory)
Else
  WSH.Echo "Please supply a directory as an argument"
  WSH.Quit
End If
Set ofso = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject") 
Set rootFolder = ofso.GetFolder(directory)
Sub DeleteEmptySubfoldersIn(folder)
  For Each subfolder in folder.SubFolders
    On Error Resume Next '' VBScript TRY
    ' The script can error out if you don't have permissions to delete
    ' the subfolder
    DeleteEmptySubfoldersIn subfolder
  Next
''WScript.Echo folder.Path
  If folder.Files.Count = 0 And folder.SubFolders.Count = 0 Then
    'TEST: print what you'll delete
    WScript.Echo "Was going to delete " & folder.Path & " b/c it's EMPTY"
'DISARMED uncomment line below to make it work
'''''ofso.DeleteFolder folder

End If
End Sub
DeleteEmptySubfoldersIn rootFolder

Answer 11

To delete empty folders while excluding hidden files

To delete empty folders while excluding hidden files using the command prompt (cmd), you can use a combination of the dir, for, and rd commands in Windows. Here's a step-by-step guide:

1. Open Command Prompt: Press Win + R, type cmd, and hit Enter.

2. Navigate to the directory where you want to start the deletion process. You can use the cd command to change directories. For example:

   cd "C:\Your\Directory\Path"
   

3. Run the following command to delete empty directories while excluding hidden files:

   for /f "delims=" %d in ('dir /ad /b /s ^| sort /r') do @(dir /a-d /b "%d" | findstr "." >nul || rd /s /q "%d")
   

This command will recursively search for all directories (/ad), list them (/b for bare format), and sort them in reverse order (/s for recursive, sort /r to reverse). Then, for each directory found, it checks if it contains any files (excluding hidden files) using dir /a-d and findstr ".". If no non-hidden files are found, it deletes the directory using rd /s /q.

Remember to replace C:\Your\Directory\Path with the actual path of the directory you want to clean up. And as always, be cautious when deleting files and folders, as this operation is irreversible. Make sure you have a backup of important data before proceeding.

---

To delete empty folders while including hidden files

To delete empty folders while including hidden files, you can use a similar approach but modify the command to include hidden files as well. Here's how you can do it:

for /f "delims=" %d in ('dir /ad /b /s ^| sort /r') do @(dir /a /b "%d" | findstr "^" >nul || rd /s /q "%d")

This command will delete empty directories while including hidden files in the check for emptiness. Here's what each part of the command does:

• for /f "delims=" %d in ('dir /ad /b /s ^| sort /r') do: This loop iterates over all directories (/ad) recursively (/s) in bare format (/b) sorted in reverse order (sort /r).

• dir /a /b "%d": Lists all files and directories, including hidden ones (/a), in the specified directory ("%d") in bare format (/b).

• findstr "^" >nul: This command checks if any files or directories are found in the specified directory. If nothing is found, it outputs nothing (redirected to nul), indicating that the directory is empty.

• rd /s /q "%d": Deletes the specified directory ("%d") recursively (/s) without prompting (/q) if it's empty.

Make sure to replace C:\Your\Directory\Path with the actual path of the directory you want to clean up. As always, exercise caution when deleting files and folders, especially with recursive commands, and ensure you have a backup of important data.

Answer 12

If you have Cygwin installed, you could do this:

find -type d -exec rmdir {} \;

Answer 13

If you're working in emacs (making this platform-agnostic), the following works:

(defun *-delete-empty-directories (root-directory)
  "Recursively delete empty directories in ROOT-DIRECTORY.

When called from dired, `dired-current-directory' is used for
ROOT-DIRECTORY."

  ;; Interface
  (interactive (list (if (eq major-mode 'dired-mode)
                         (expand-file-name (dired-current-directory))
                       (read-from-minibuffer "Root directory: "))))
  (when (or (null root-directory) (string= "" root-directory))
    (user-error "No root directory provided"))
  (when (called-interactively-p 'interactive)
    (unless (yes-or-no-p (format "Delete all non-empty directories in `%s'? "
                                 root-directory))
      (user-error "Directory `%s' has been left untouched" root-directory)))

  ;; Implementation
  (require 'f)
  (let ((entries (f-directories root-directory)))
    (while entries
      (let ((curdir (car entries)))
        (when (f-directories curdir)
          (*-delete-empty-directories curdir))
        (unless (f-entries curdir)
          (delete-directory curdir)
          (message "Directory deleted: `%s'" curdir))
        (setq entries (cdr entries)))))