Windows Script – How to Delete All Files from a Folder and Its Subfolders

batch filepowershellscriptvbscriptwindows

I want to remove all files from a folder structure, so I'm left with an empty folder structure.

Can this be achieved in either batch or VBScript scripting?

I have tried a very basic batch command, but this required the user to allow the deletion of each file. This wasn't a suitable solution as there are many hundreds of files and this will increase massively over time.

What can you suggest?

Best Answer

This can be accomplished using PowerShell:

Get-ChildItem -Path C:\Temp -Include *.* -File -Recurse | foreach { $_.Delete()}

This command gets each child item in $path, executes the delete method on each one, and is quite fast. The folder structure is left intact.

If you may have files without an extension, use

Get-ChildItem -Path C:\Temp -Include * -File -Recurse | foreach { $_.Delete()}

instead.

It appears the -File parameter may have been added after PowerShell v2. If that's the case, then

Get-ChildItem -Path C:\Temp -Include *.* -Recurse | foreach { $_.Delete()}

It should do the trick for files that have an extension.

If it does not work, check if you have an up-to-date version of Powershell

Related Solutions

Windows – Batch delete temporary Windows files (system, browsers, cache, etc) for all users

I had the same question, but motivated by the desire to aid my efforts to finish off malware cleanup operations. Here's the command script I wrote with an eye toward modularization so it could be extended easily for future OSes and temp file locations (I wrote this before learning PowerShell and haven't bothered to update it). Because it accesses every users profile folder on the machine as well as Windows system folders, the script must be run with elevated privileges.

@echo off
Rem Temp File Purging Tool v1.2.0
Rem Written by Twisty.  Created 1/19/2011.  Modified 6/28/2011.
Rem
Rem This script deletes temp files in locations where malware likes to write its initial
Rem files for infection and also where standard users have write permissions.
Rem
Rem This tool isn't likely to be as helpful to clean systems on which users run with 
Rem Admin permissions.  If you let your users run with Admin permissions you by extension
Rem give much of the malware on the Internet permission to do as it pleases on your workstations.

    

    Rem Identify version of Windows


    SET WinVer=Unknown

    VER | FINDSTR /IL "5.1." > NUL
    IF %ERRORLEVEL% EQU 0 SET WinVer=XP

    rem 5.2 is actually Server 2003, but for our purposes it's the same as XP
    VER | FINDSTR /IL "5.2." > NUL
    IF %ERRORLEVEL% EQU 0 SET WinVer=XP

    VER | FINDSTR /IL "6.0." > NUL
    IF %ERRORLEVEL% EQU 0 SET WinVer=VISTA

    rem 6.1 is actually Windows 7, but for our purposes it's the same as Vista
    VER | FINDSTR /IL "6.1." > NUL
    IF %ERRORLEVEL% EQU 0 SET WinVer=VISTA


    rem Ask user the version if we cannot automatically determine
    If Not "%WinVer%" EQU "Unknown" Goto :SetUserProfPath
    
    Set /P Response="Select OS  [X]P, [V]ista/7: "
    If /i "%Response%" EQU "X" Set WinVer=XP
    If /i "%Response%" EQU "V" Set WinVer=VISTA
    If "%WinVer%" EQU "" Echo Invalid response. Exiting.&goto :eof


:SetUserProfPath
    If %WinVer% EQU XP (
        Set UserProfileRootPath=C:\Documents and Settings
    ) Else (
        Set UserProfileRootPath=C:\Users
    )

    Call :RemoveSubfoldersAndFiles %SystemRoot%\Temp

    Rem Walk through each user profile folder
    Rem This convoluted command is necessary to ensure we process hidden and system folders too
    for /f "delims=" %%D in ('dir /ad /b "%UserProfileRootPath%"') DO Call :ProcessProfileFolder %UserProfileRootPath%\%%D

    Echo.
    Echo Finished! Press a key to exit...
    Pause>Nul

goto :EOF


:ProcessProfileFolder

    Set FolderName=%*

    Rem Leave if it's not a user profile folder
    If Not Exist "%FolderName%\ntuser.dat" goto :EOF

    Rem Leave it's a profile folder on the exclude list
    If /I "%FolderName%" EQU "%UserProfileRootPath%\Default" goto :EOF
    If /I "%FolderName%" EQU "%UserProfileRootPath%\Default User" goto :EOF
    If /I "%FolderName%" EQU "%UserProfileRootPath%\NetworkService" goto :EOF
    If /I "%FolderName%" EQU "%UserProfileRootPath%\LocalService" goto :EOF

    Set UserProfilePath=%FolderName%

    Rem Clean up these folders
    If %WinVer% EQU XP (
        Call :RemoveSubfoldersAndFiles %UserProfilePath%\Local Settings\Temp
        Call :RemoveSubfoldersAndFiles %UserProfilePath%\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files
        Call :RemoveSubfoldersAndFiles %UserProfilePath%\Application Data\Sun\Java\Deployment\cache

    ) Else (
        Call :RemoveSubfoldersAndFiles %UserProfilePath%\AppData\Local\Temp
        Call :RemoveSubfoldersAndFiles %UserProfilePath%\AppData\LocalLow\Temp
        Call :RemoveSubfoldersAndFiles %UserProfilePath%\AppData\LocalLow\Sun\Java\Deployment\cache
        Call :RemoveSubfoldersAndFiles %UserProfilePath%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Temporary Internet Files
    )
    

goto :EOF


:RemoveSubfoldersAndFiles

    Set FolderRootPath=%*

    Rem Confirm target folder exists
    If Not Exist "%FolderRootPath%" Goto :EOF

    Rem Make the folder to clean current and confirm it exists...
    CD /D %FolderRootPath%

    Rem Confirm we switched directories
    If /I "%CD%" NEQ "%FolderRootPath%" Goto :EOF

    Rem ...so that this command cannot delete the folder, only everything in it
    Echo Purging %CD%
    RD /S /Q . >>nul 2>>&1

goto :EOF

Extending the Script's Functionality

Part of the script's extensibility is found in its use of the :RemoveSubfoldersAndFiles procedure. To delete the contents of a folder, simply call this procedure and pass a folder path as the only parameter (without double-quotes). The routine will gracefully handle paths that don't exist, folders that cannot be accessed for any reason, or the case where some files or folders below the path are in use or otherwise refuse to be deleted.

To clean up additional folders found in each user's profile

In the section Rem Clean up these folders add additional calls to the :RemoveSubfoldersAndFiles subroutine. For example, to delete everything in each user's \AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Temporary Internet Files folder add the line:

Call :RemoveSubfoldersAndFiles %UserProfilePath%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Temporary Internet Files

Note the use of the script-defined %UserProfilePath% variable instead of the typical %USERPROFILE% variable. The script's version is dynamically updated as the script iterates through each user profile on the machine.

To clean up folders found outside user profiles

In the :SetUserProfPath subroutine, again add calls to the :RemoveSubfoldersAndFiles procedure. For example:

Call :RemoveSubfoldersAndFiles C:\Temp

Windows CMD – How to Move All Files from Subfolders to Parent Folder

Use FOR /R at the command prompt:

[FOR /R] walks down the folder tree starting at [drive:]path, and executes the DO statement against each matching file.

First create a staging folder outside of the parent folder you're moving files from. This will avoid possible circular references.

In your case the command would look something like this:

FOR /R "C:\Source Folder" %i IN (*.png) DO MOVE "%i" "C:\Staging Folder"

If you want to put this into a batch file, change %i to %%i.

Note the double-quotes are important, don't miss any of them out. They ensure any filenames containing spaces are dealt with correctly.

Once the move is complete, you can rename/move the staging folder as required.

TIP: If you have hard drive space to burn and time on hand, you may want to play it safe and copy the files rather than moving them, just in case something goes wrong. Just change MOVE to COPY in the above command.