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Ditching empty folders

CWBillow

CWBillow

Jul
350
1
is there a way to, starting in the Documents folder (Vista), say "OK start here and go all the way through all the folders and sub folders, deleting any folders if they are empty"?

Of course, if Folder A contains folder 2, and Folder 2 is empty, then it will delete Folder 2 but not Folder A, unless I ran the process again, assuming there is such a process.

Is there any such command or process that might do this?

Regards,
Chuck Billow
 
This question comes up periodically. The method I use is to use the command "del /szxkqey ThisIsAFilenameThatWillNotExist" (or whatever name you want to use, that you know will not exist). That cleans up all of the empty subdirectories. Oh, and to use proper syntax, the "/szxkqey" should really be split into separate switches - "/s /z /x /k /q /e /y" but at least with the old 4NT version 6 that I'm using, it still works fine without splitting them.
 
CWBillow wrote:

> is there a way to, starting in the Documents folder (Vista), say "OK start here and go all the way through all the folders and sub folders, deleting any folders if they are empty"?
>
> Of course, if Folder A contains folder 2, and Folder 2 is empty, then it will delete Folder 2 but not Folder A, unless I ran the process again, assuming there is such a process.
>
> Is there any such command or process that might do this?
>
> Regards,
> Chuck Billow
>
>
>
>
Click to expand...

Try del /a:d /n /ne /s /y /x path
Remove the /n option when testing looks like it does what you want.
 
MickeyF said:
This question comes up periodically. The method I use is to use the command "del /szxkqey ThisIsAFilenameThatWillNotExist" (or whatever name you want to use, that you know will not exist). That cleans up all of the empty subdirectories. Oh, and to use proper syntax, the "/szxkqey" should really be split into separate switches - "/s /z /x /k /q /e /y" but at least with the old 4NT version 6 that I'm using, it still works fine without splitting them.
Click to expand...

Fabulous. Thanks.

Regards,
Chuck Billow
 
MickeyF said:
This question comes up periodically. The method I use is to use the command "del /szxkqey ThisIsAFilenameThatWillNotExist" (or whatever name you want to use, that you know will not exist). That cleans up all of the empty subdirectories. Oh, and to use proper syntax, the "/szxkqey" should really be split into separate switches - "/s /z /x /k /q /e /y" but at least with the old 4NT version 6 that I'm using, it still works fine without splitting them.
Click to expand...

I use NUL.* as a filespec that cannot exist:

Code: 
del /s /e /x /y /z d:\pathname\nul.*
If it's possible that there are no files at all in the directory, and you don't want the topmost directory itself to be removed, you can protect it by temporarily changing to it:

Code: 
pushd d:\pathname
del /s /e /x /y /z nul.*
popd
 
Charles Dye said:
I use NUL.* as a filespec that cannot exist:

Code: 
del /s /e /x /y /z d:\pathname\nul.*
If it's possible that there are no files at all in the directory, and you don't want the topmost directory itself to be removed, you can protect it by temporarily changing to it:

Code: 
pushd d:\pathname
del /s /e /x /y /z nul.*
popd
Click to expand...

Charles, would that be any better than just switching to the topmost directory, and executing the command from there?

Regards,
Chuck Billow
 
Charles Dye said:
That's exactly what I'm doing.
Click to expand...

But then would I need to "protect" that directory? or would that one get deleted as well -- if it were empty?

'cause I just went into the topmost level, C:\Users\CWBillow\Documents, and ran the command

del /s /z /x /k /q /e /y ThisIsAFilenameThatWillNotExist

straight away, and it seemed to worked OK...?
 
CWBillow said:
But then would I need to "protect" that directory? or would that one get deleted as well -- if it were empty?

'cause I just went into the topmost level, C:\Users\CWBillow\Documents, and ran the command

del /s /z /x /k /q /e /y ThisIsAFilenameThatWillNotExist

straight away, and it seemed to worked OK...?
Click to expand...

That's fine. TCC can't remove the current working directory.
 
CWBillow said:
Ah...so then the pushd is needed when the command is issued to a directory other than the current one?
Click to expand...

The PUSHD just makes it easy to return to the previous directory; CDD would work as well.

(And the only reason I suggest changing to the topmost directory is to prevent it from being removed. If there's a single file in there anywhere, it won't be. And if you don't mind the topmost directory being removed if it contains no files, then again there's no need to change to it.)
 
Charles Dye said:
The PUSHD just makes it easy to return to the previous directory; CDD would work as well.

(And the only reason I suggest changing to the topmost directory is to prevent it from being removed. If there's a single file in there anywhere, it won't be. And if you don't mind the topmost directory being removed if it contains no files, then again there's no need to change to it.)
Click to expand...

Charles, I certainly wouldn't want my top directory removed! I Gotcha now.

Thanks,
Chuck Billow
 
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