I wish to delete a lot of files on windows quickly as possible.
Got any suggestions on how to do it (in batch script, windows command or ant script etc.)?
I was thinking of the following directions:
Parallel deletion. It apperats that when I delete a bunch of files it takes longer than deleting groups of these files parallely.
Any (quick!) way to make these files on creation time to "sit" closely on the disk?
Any optimizations in deletion, given that the deletion is permanat?
Any lazy mechanism windows has. That is, it doesn't really delete the files at that moment, but creates the effect that it did (you won't see it on the cmd.exe dir command or on the gui, and you could create a new file with a name that used to exist etc.) and windows will continue the real deletion in the background.
Any input will be extremely helpfull,
Thank you.
I find that the command line tends to be faster with file operations. For example, to delete C:\Parent\Folder\OldFolder, open the Command Prompt and type:
CD "C:\Parent\Folder"
Attrib -R -S -H "OldFolder\*.*" /S /D /L
RD /S /Q "OldFolder"
You could try using the commmand line as Hand-E-Food said. You can use these commands to delete files and remove folders.
del /f /s /q
rd /s /q
Or use wildcards to wipe all files out from a directory:
del C:\filestodel\*.* /f /s /q
Related
Okay, I apologize that I am very new at this, but I am trying to make my batch file delete it's own directory after it has been launched. This is how my folders are arranged:
Folder1
delete.bat
My goal is to make "delete.bat" delete "Folder1" after "delete.bat" has been launched. So here's my code:
rd /s /q %~dp0..\Folder1
This seems like it would work but it only deletes the contents of "Folder1" rather than the whole directory itself. What am I doing wrong?
Some thoughts...
%~dp0 gets the drive and path of the batch file, so you don't need to include ..\Folder1.
What you have should work. If it's not removing the folder itself, it means that it's locked, probably because cmd's current folder is Folder1. (That's a likely guess, but it's not the only reason it might be locked.) If it is cmd, you'll have to call the batch file from another folder, outside of Folder1.
While what you have will work, it will result in a funny error when resuming the non-existent batch file: The system cannot find the path specified. You can avoid that in the solution below.
One good solution: start /b "" cmd /c rd /s /q "%~dp0"
This creates a new process to remove the folder (and everything in it, including the batch file itself). Be careful. =)
From the corresponding MSDN link for rd:
You cannot use rmdir to delete the current directory. You must first change to a different directory (not a subdirectory of the current directory) and then use rmdir with a path.
I guess this is what's going wrong in your case since the batch file is located within the directory that you're trying to delete.
My implementation is effectively the same as Soja's, plus the info from dbenham's comment. I have added a 2-sec delay, to ensure there are no timing issues, even though I believe the error when the .bat file is deleting itself is harmless.
#echo off
:: Do the work
...your command here...
:: In order to delete the current dir we are running from (and all subdirs), none of them can be the
:: current working directory of any running process. Therefore, we are setting our own CWD to something
:: else, so it will be inherited by the below cmd.exe.
cd /d %temp%
:: The countdown is there to allow this batch file to exit, so it can then be deleted safely.
set DelayedSelfDeleteCommand="timeout /t 2 >NUL && rmdir /s /q "%~dp0""
:: Start a separate process (without waiting for it), to execute the command
start "" /b cmd.exe /C %DelayedSelfDeleteCommand%
Well I think it cannot be done (at least as normal user)
start /b "" cmd /c rd /s "%~dp0"
deletes folder but only with right permissions I think
start /b "" cmd /c rmdir /s "C:/folder"
This has the same result
del /s /q "C:\Temp\folder\*"
rmdir /s /q "C:\Temp\folder"
del %0
only way as for batch files is to use vbs script or autohotkey (send !{Space} // send e // send p formula) or hack it, you can delete only file used and content of folder but not working directory due to specification of cmd. Any other language would have no problem with it cuz it in RAM memory.
I recommend this way to do it (as for normal users):
in your bat file add
copy C:\urpath\deleteafter.bat C:\Temp\deleteafter.bat
start "" autohotkey.exe "X:\patchto\deletebatchfile.ahk"
deletebatchfile.ahk
sleep 2000
Run, C:\Temp\deleteafter.bat, C:\Temp\
deleteafter.bat
rmdir /s /q "C:\Temp\batfileworkingpath"
sleep 3
del %0
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 "C:\<dir>\"
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>nul
rmdir /s /q mydir
(The 1>nul hides the standard output of del because otherwise, it lists every single file it deletes.)
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
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.
enter the Command Prompt as Admin and run
rmdir /s <FOLDER>
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
As #gfullam stated in a comment to #BoffinbraiN's answer, the <dir> you are deleting itself might not be the one which contains files: there might be subdirectories in <dir> 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:\<dir>"
Im my case i just moved the folder to root directory like so.
move <source directory> c:\
And then ran the command to remove the directory
rmdir c:\<moved directory> /s /q
I had "C:\Users\User Name\OneDrive\Fonts", which was mklink'ed ( /D ) to "C:\Windows\Fonts", and I got the same problem. In my case
cd "C:\Users\User Name\OneDrive"
rd /s Fonts
Y (to confirm the action)
helped me. I hope, that it helps you too ;D
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
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%
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
one liner:
if exist folder rmdir /Q /S folder
I'm using this in a NPM script like so (Javascript) :
//package.json
"scripts": {
"start": "parcel --no-cache",
"clean": "if exist dist rmdir /Q /S dist",
"deploy": "npm run clean && parcel build --no-source-maps && firebase deploy"
},
Open CMD as administrator
chkdsk c: /F /R
Press the “Y” key if asked to check your disk the next time your system restarts.
Restart the machine. After that just delete the folder.
The easiest way I found to do this is:
rm -rf dir_name
it worked on zsh - macOS, it should work on windows cmd as well.
if you need to delete a folder on Windows with a batch file you will need to use PowerShell and this is how it is done:
rmdir .\directory_name\ -Recurse
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
)
Force delete the directory (if exists)
Delete.bat
set output_path="C:\Temp\MyFolder"
if exist %output_path% (
echo Deleting %output_path%
attrib -r /s /d %output_path%
rd /s /q %output_path%
)
I've fixed this before my making sure there wasn't extra whitespace in the name of the directory I was deleting. This is more of a concern when I had the directory name contained within a variable that I was passing to RD. If you're specifying your directly in quotes then this isn't helpful, but I hope that someone like me comes along with the same problem and sees this. RD /S /Q can work, as I noticed the issue started happening when I changed something in my batch script.
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.
After a backup every file on a disk looks like filename_1.jpg
I am using del *_1.* to delete the file.s But can I use the command in D:\ to work down each folder either?
At present I use del *_1.* then cd .. the cd into the next dir, and so on.
Be very, very careful with this command. One false move and you can do a lot of damage...
First try
dir /b /s "d:\*_1.*"
which should show you a list of target files to check. If you like, you can use "d:\somedirectory\*_1.*" to start at some subdirectory.
Once you're satisfied with your list, the command you want is
del /s "d:\*_1.*"
Which I usually invoke by up-arrowing to return the previous command and editing the DIR /B to DEL to make sure that I don't change the filemask.
But as I say - use with extreme caution! The /s is the magic - it means 'and in subdirectories'
I'm using this batch script to delete files
FORFILES /P "X:\test" /S /M *.bak /C "CMD /C DEL #path"
However, the X drive is a resource on an active/passive cluster. I have to run the batch file on both nodes. Two questions...
Is this the best method?
I want the batch to look for the X drive before deleting the files - do you know of a way? I don't want it to run on the passive cluster because the X drive won't be on it.
It would be much faster to simply use DEL instead of FORFILES. You can test if the root path exists using IF EXIST.
if exist "x:\test\*.bak" del /q /s "x:\test\*.bak"
I just trying copying a file to the folder. Then check to see if the file exists afterward. If it does, I delete the file, and then I can proceed.
This question's answers are a community effort. Edit existing answers to improve this post. It is not currently accepting new answers or interactions.
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.
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 > 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)
Using Windows Command Prompt:
rmdir /s /q folder
Using Powershell:
powershell -Command "Remove-Item -LiteralPath 'folder' -Force -Recurse"
Note that in more cases del and rmdir wil leave you with leftover files, where Powershell manages to delete the files.
use fastcopy, a free tool.
it has a delete option that is a lot faster then the way windows deletes files.
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,
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
Try Shift + Delete. Did 24.000 files in 2 minutes for me.