{"id":8771,"date":"2019-04-21T17:32:53","date_gmt":"2019-04-21T17:32:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/198.58.113.91\/blog\/?p=8771"},"modified":"2023-07-05T20:20:29","modified_gmt":"2023-07-05T14:50:29","slug":"find-and-delete-empty-folders-windows","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.winhelponline.com\/blog\/find-and-delete-empty-folders-windows\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Find and Remove Empty Folders in Windows"},"content":{"rendered":"

Over time, hundreds of empty folders and junk files may take up your hard disk. While the junk files occupy disk space and can be cleaned up using Disk Cleanup<\/a> or Storage settings<\/a>, the empty directories remain.<\/p>\n

The empty folders don’t take up disk space, but to organize your data better, you may want to prune them every once in a while.<\/p>\n

This article discusses different methods to find and remove empty folders on your computer.<\/p>\n

\n

Find\/Remove Empty Directories in Windows<\/h4>\n
    \n
  1. Using “Find Empty Files-n-Folders“<\/strong> or “Empty Folder Cleaner”<\/a> (GUI)<\/li>\n
  2. Using For<\/em> and rd<\/em> commands<\/a><\/li>\n
  3. Using Robocopy<\/a><\/li>\n
  4. Using PowerShell<\/a><\/li>\n
  5. Using Windows Scripting<\/a><\/li>\n
  6. Using DelEmpty.exe<\/a><\/li>\n
  7. Using SearchMyFiles utility from Nirsoft<\/a> (GUI)<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/div>\n

    How to Find and Remove Empty Folders in Windows?<\/h2>\n

    An empty folder or directory is one that has no file or sub-directory in it. Empty folders don’t take any disk space, but too many of them can be a nuisance. To find and remove them, use one of the methods below.<\/p>\n

    Important:<\/strong> Running an automated tool or batch file to delete empty folders in the entire system drive recursively is usually not recommended. This is because some programs may fail to work and throw a bizarre error when it finds an essential folder missing. As always, the standard warning applies. Be sure to have appropriate backups, preferably on an external drive, before manipulating the file system or the Windows registry.<\/em><\/p>\n

    RELATED:<\/strong> Find and delete 0-byte files recursively in a folder in Windows<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

    Let’s start with a neat GUI tool, followed by native command-line and scripting methods.<\/p>\n

    <\/a>1. Remove empty folders using the “Find Empty Files-n-Folders” utility<\/h3>\n

    Find Empty Files-n-Folders is an excellent tool that can find and delete empty files (0-byte) and empty folders recursively under a folder tree.<\/p>\n

      \n
    1. Download Find Empty Files-n-Folders<\/a> (600KB installer) from Ashisoft.com.<\/li>\n
    2. Select the folder and click Scan Now.
      \n\"remove
      \nThe tool will list empty files and folders in separate tabs.<\/li>\n
    3. Click Mark all Folders<\/strong> and then click Delete Folders<\/strong>.
      \n\"remove
      \nSimilarly, if you want to       delete the 0-byte files<\/a> in the selected folder tree, click on the Empty Files<\/strong> tab.<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      Ashisoft.com has other awesome tools that you can check out!<\/p>\n

      \nYou may also take a look at the “Empty Folder Cleaner” cleaner from 4-dots-software.com. It’s not a freeware, though. But a 30-day trial is available.<\/p>\n
      https:\/\/www.4dots-software.com\/emptyfoldercleaner\/<\/pre>\n<\/div>\n
      \n
      <\/a>2. Remove empty folders using “for” and “rd” commands<\/h3>\n
      You can use the Command Prompt internal commands for<\/em><\/code> and rd<\/em><\/code> to enumerate the list of folders and delete the empty ones.<\/p>\n
        \n
      1. Press & hold the Shift<\/kbd> key, right-click on a folder and click Open command window here<\/strong>. This opens Command Prompt at the current folder location, which can also verify in the console.\n
        Note:<\/strong> You must make sure that you run the following command from the exact parent folder path where you need to find and remove empty sub-folders.<\/em><\/div>\n<\/li>\n
      2. Once you’re in the desired directory in the Command Prompt, run this command-line:\n
        for \/f \"delims=\" %i in ('dir \/s \/b \/ad ^| sort \/r') do rd \"%i\" 2>NUL\r\n(or)\r\nfor \/f \"usebackq delims=\" %i in (`\"dir \/s \/b \/ad | sort \/r\"`) do rd \"%i\" 2>NUL<\/pre>\n
        \"remove<\/p>\n
        This deletes all the empty directories across sub-directories from the base folder path, including nested empty folders.<\/p>\n
        If you’re going to use the above command in a batch file, then replace %i<\/code> with %%i<\/code>.<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
        \"warningImportant:<\/strong> The above command won’t delete<\/strong> folders with foreign characters — e.g.,\u00a0 \u870d\u7a42. You may want to check out DelEmpty.exe<\/a> (covered in this article) or other methods to delete folders with Unicode characters.<\/p>\n
        The above command-line is courtesy of Raymond Chen of Microsoft, via his blog The Old New Thing<\/a>. In this post, Raymond’s command-line has been slightly modified so that it also deletes folder names containing space(s).<\/em><\/p>\n
        \n
        How does the command work<\/h4>\n
        The above command lists all the sub-directories (recursively) in the current base path and sorts the list (sort \/r<\/code>) in reverse order. The reverse order sort is to make sure that the enumeration is done bottom-up. This is important for deleting empty directories, as you have to remove the subdirectories before removing the parent.<\/p>\n
        Then it attempts to remove the list of directories (in reverse sort order) using the RD<\/code> command. If a directory is not empty, it proceeds on to the next directory and so on. The 2>NUL<\/code> command ensures that the “directory not empty” output text<\/a> is suppressed.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
        The only disadvantage of the above method is that it’s not helpful if you want to find empty folders without deleting them. If you want to find the list of empty folders, use the command-line in the paragraph below, or follow any other method described in this article.<\/p>\n
        Find empty folders, but don’t delete<\/h4>\n
        To only find the empty folders without deleting them, use this command-line syntax:<\/p>\n
        for \/r \"D:\\uploads\\2019\" \/d %F in (.) do @dir \/b \"%F\" | findstr \"^\" >nul || echo %~fF<\/pre>\n
        It shows you the output containing the list of empty directories.<\/p>\n
        \"list<\/p>\n
        Let’s say you have empty nested folders like this:<\/p>\n
        C:\\1\r\n\u2514\u2500\u2500\u25002\r\n    \u2514\u2500\u2500\u25003\r\n        \u2514\u2500\u2500\u25004<\/pre>\n
        Running the above command lists only the deep most empty folder \u2192 4<\/code>. Technically, it’s correct because a folder can’t be considered empty if a sub-folder or a file exists in it.<\/p>\n
        \n
        <\/a>3. Find and remove empty folders using Robocopy<\/h3>\n
        Robocopy is a powerful built-in file copy tool that has a lot of advanced features. We’ve covered Robocopy in the article Compare the Contents of Two Folders in Windows<\/a>.<\/p>\n
        Let’s assume you have a folder named cars<\/code> , which contains several sub-folders, of which some are empty. We’re going to delete the empty ones using Robocopy.<\/em><\/p>\n
        \"handThe trick<\/strong> here is to use the Robocopy move command, passing the exact same folder path for both “source” as well as “destination.”<\/p>\n
          \n
        1. Open a Command Prompt window.<\/li>\n
        2. Type the following command and press ENTER<\/kbd>:\n
          robocopy \"d:\\automobile rates\\cars\" \"d:\\automobile rates\\cars\" \/S \/move<\/pre>\n
          The most important<\/strong> thing to note here is that the source<\/strong> and destination<\/strong> paths are (deliberately) the same. The \/S<\/code> parameter instructs Robocopy not to move empty folders to the “destination” path. As we’ve mentioned the same paths for source and destination, Robocopy will delete the empty folders due to the \/S<\/code> switch.<\/em><\/p>\n
          \"robocopy<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
          The empty folders in the chosen path are now cleared.<\/p>\n
          \n
          Want to find empty folders but not delete them?<\/h4>\n
          You can use the \/L<\/code> (list-only) command-line argument with Robocopy so that it only carries out a dry-run instead of performing the actual copy\/move operation.<\/p>\n
          \/L<\/code> :: List only – don’t copy, timestamp, or delete any files.
          \n\/MOVE<\/code> :: MOVE files AND dirs (delete from source after copying).
          \n\/S<\/code> :: copy Subdirectories, but not empty ones.<\/p>\n
          \"robocopy<\/p>\n
          You can see the number of files in a column hear the folder path. The 0<\/code>s mean that those folders have no files.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
          Let’s put this command to a real test!<\/p>\n
          My %APPDATA%<\/code> folder is full of empty folders added by obsolete programs.<\/p>\n
          \"appdata<\/p>\n
          Before the cleanup, the Appdata\\Roaming<\/strong> folder had 681 folders, as seen in the folder properties.
          \n\"remove<\/p>\n
          I opened the Command Prompt and ran the following command:<\/p>\n
          robocopy \"%appdata%\" \"%appdata%\" \/S \/MOVE<\/pre>\n
          Note: %appdata% environment variable translates to C:\\Users\\{username}\\AppData\\Roaming<\/code> folder. You can use the full folder path or the equivalent environment variable with Robocopy. Either is fine.<\/em><\/p>\n
          \"robocopy<\/p>\n
          It has successfully removed 94<\/strong> empty folders in my %APPDATA%<\/code> folder and sub-folders.<\/p>\n
          \"remove<\/p>\n
          Editor’s note:<\/strong> In the command-line output below the statistics section, the following error appeared:<\/em><\/p>\n
          “ERROR 32 (0x00000020) Deleting Source Directory C:\\Users\\ramesh\\AppData\\Roaming\\
          \nThe process cannot access the file because it is being used by another process.”<\/div>\n
          \"robocopy<\/p>\n
          Because we’ve instructed Robocopy to move (\/MOVE<\/code>) the %APPDATA% directory, the tool was trying to clean up the “source” folder after “moving” it to the destination. It couldn’t, as %APPDATA% is a special folder. The error doesn’t occur when used a directory path that’s not a special folder. As everything went on fine, I simply ignored the (trivial) error.<\/em><\/p>\n
          \n
          <\/a>4. Find and Remove empty folders using PowerShell<\/h3>\n
          The following PowerShell command-line deletes empty folders located under the specified base folder recursively.<\/p>\n
            \n
          1. Start PowerShell and type the following command:\n
            (gci \"folderpath\" -r | ? {$_.PSIsContainer -eq $True}) | ?{$_.GetFileSystemInfos().Count -eq 0} | remove-item<\/pre>\n
            Replace “folderpath” with the base folder location. For example, I’m specifying the Roaming<\/strong> folder here:<\/em><\/p>\n
            (gci \"C:\\Users\\ramesh\\AppData\\Roaming\" -r | ? {$_.PSIsContainer -eq $True}) | ?{$_.GetFileSystemInfos().Count -eq 0} | remove-item<\/pre>\n
            \"powershell<\/p>\n
            This deletes all the empty sub-folders under my %appdata%<\/code> folder recursively and doesn’t show any output unless it encounters any error(s).<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
            Note that the above PowerShell command clears only the last level of the empty nested folder. For example, let’s say you have empty nested folders like this:<\/p>\n
            C:\\1\r\n\u2514\u2500\u2500\u25002\r\n    \u2514\u2500\u2500\u25003\r\n        \u2514\u2500\u2500\u25004<\/pre>\n
            Running the above command clears the deep most empty folder \u2192 4<\/code>. Rerunning the script will clear another level of a nested folder (3<\/code>), and so forth.<\/p>\n
            You can use the PowerShell script at Svendsen Tech PowerShell Wiki<\/a> to work with nested folders.<\/em><\/p>\n
            Alternately, you can use the next method, a Windows Scripting<\/a> solution, to clear all empty folders, including nested ones, recursively.<\/em><\/p>\n
            \n
            Find empty folders, but don’t want to delete them?<\/h4>\n
            Want to get the list of empty folders, but don’t want to delete them? Use this command-line example instead:<\/p>\n
            (gci \"C:\\Users\\ramesh\\AppData\\Roaming\" -r | ? {$_.PSIsContainer -eq $True}) | ?{$_.GetFileSystemInfos().Count -eq 0} | select FullName | Out-GridView<\/pre>\n
            \"powershell<\/p>\n
            The command outputs the list of empty folders with full paths to a grid view control.<\/p>\n
            \"powershell<\/p>\n
            Tip:<\/strong> In the grid view, you can select all and copy the selection by pressing Ctrl<\/kbd> + C<\/kbd><\/em><\/p>\n
            It’s a good idea to preview the list before running the command to delete the folders.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
            \n
            <\/a>5. Find and Remove empty folders using Windows Scripting<\/h3>\n
            Microsoft employee Jeremy Jameson<\/a> wrote a VBScript that deletes empty folders recursively. I’ve added more lines in the script to force delete empty read-only directories, output the aggregated list of empty folders. It also outputs the list of empty folders that could not be deleted, along with the corresponding error description.<\/p>\n
            The script is capable of deleting nested empty directories across sub-folders.<\/p>\n