How to recursively remove all empty folders in PowerShell?

Asked 20/2, 2015 at 14:34 Answered 9/9, 2021 at 5:43

I need to recursively remove all empty folders for a specific folder in PowerShell (checking folder and sub-folder at any level).

At the moment I am using this script with no success.

Could you please tell me how to fix it?

$tdc='C:\a\c\d\'
$a = Get-ChildItem $tdc -recurse | Where-Object {$_.PSIsContainer -eq $True}
$a | Where-Object {$_.GetFiles().Count -eq 0} | Select-Object FullName

I am using PowerShell on Windows 8.1 version.

Gauge answered 20/2, 2015 at 14:34 Comment(5)

It seems to me the only thing you are missing is the actual removal of the folders. Added the -WhatIf... $a | Where-Object {$_.GetFiles().Count -eq 0} | select -expand FullName | remove-item -whatif – Pyjamas 20/2, 2015 at 14:44

thanks for your comment, but using your code, I get a popup window saying... has children and has Recurse parameter was not specified.. I need it avoid this warning. – Gauge 20/2, 2015 at 14:53

Remove-Item -Recurse should do the trick. If however both the folder ~\a\b and the subfolder ~\a\b\c have no files in them you'll get an error saying the path couldn't be found when the $_.GetFiles()-part is being run for ~a\b\c, which is true if ~\a\b already was deleted. – Pyjamas 20/2, 2015 at 15:18

This is where powershell is yet again ridiculous. There's a ISO standard C function for that: rmdir. Here is the implementation on the Windows platform (as OP tagged Windows): learn.microsoft.com/en-us/cpp/c-runtime-library/reference/… . Workarounds like listing each directory content another time just to check whether its empty are really poor in terms of performance. – Pyrex 26/7, 2018 at 15:36

I got troubles with many answers here. Please, if you use .FullName then use Get-ChildItem's -LiteralPath !!! – Perineuritis 24/6, 2019 at 20:47

You can use this:

$tdc="C:\a\c\d"
$dirs = gci $tdc -directory -recurse | Where { (gci $_.fullName).count -eq 0 } | select -expandproperty FullName
$dirs | Foreach-Object { Remove-Item $_ }

$dirs will be an array of empty directories returned from the Get-ChildItem command after filtering. You can then loop over it to remove the items.

Update

If you want to remove directories that contain empty directories, you just need to keep running the script until they're all gone. You can loop until $dirs is empty:

$tdc="C:\a\c\d"
do {
  $dirs = gci $tdc -directory -recurse | Where { (gci $_.fullName).count -eq 0 } | select -expandproperty FullName
  $dirs | Foreach-Object { Remove-Item $_ }
} while ($dirs.count -gt 0)

If you want to ensure that hidden files and folders will also be removed, include the -Force flag:

do {
  $dirs = gci $tdc -directory -recurse | Where { (gci $_.fullName -Force).count -eq 0 } | select -expandproperty FullName
  $dirs | Foreach-Object { Remove-Item $_ }
} while ($dirs.count -gt 0)

Barogram answered 20/2, 2015 at 14:45 Comment(14)

thanks, but I found a possible problem, it work for first level nesting of folder. I need to go deep at any level. Could you please double check it? – Gauge 20/2, 2015 at 15:4

I don't understand what you mean... -recurse will ensure it traverses all the way. It won't recursively remove folders that contain empty folders, if that's what you mean, because they're not empty. – Barogram 20/2, 2015 at 15:6

thanks for your comment, I would need ...remove folders that contain empty folders..... do you think would be possible to tweak your script? Is it possible in some how? – Gauge 20/2, 2015 at 15:9

Thanks for your edit, but using your new code I get error: The property 'count' cannot be found on this object. Verify that the property exists... any idea? thanks for your help – Gauge 20/2, 2015 at 15:24

Did you type it correctly..? Anything .count always returns a number. Just try $null.count in your console window. – Barogram 20/2, 2015 at 15:27

yes I am coping and pastin..., I have tried several times, I get error multiple times at: $dirs = gci $tdc -directory -recurse | Where { (gci $_.fullName).count -eq 0 } – Gauge 20/2, 2015 at 15:29

I don't know what you've done, works flawlessly for me. Make sure you have permission to everything you're trying. And you only need to run the second bit of the solution. Don't combine it with the first bit. – Barogram 20/2, 2015 at 15:33

Try this gci $_.fullName |select -expand count – Girovard 20/2, 2015 at 15:39

@Kayasax that won't work. Count is not a property of a FileInfo object. It's a property of the array that gci returns, hence why the command needs to be in parenthesis – Barogram 20/2, 2015 at 15:43

It has to be (gci $_.fullName -Force).count otherwise it won't count hidden files. – Mohock 8/8, 2016 at 18:57

wonderul, I'd just add -verbose to remove-item to know what is being deleted – Pamphlet 12/3, 2019 at 17:42

You must use -LiteralPath with .FullName!!! – Perineuritis 24/6, 2019 at 20:44

How do I leave first level folders not deleted? I mean lets say I have folders Cust1, Cust2, Cust3 under "C:\a\c\d" which I want to be left there even they are empty. In other words how to make the script working starting only from the second level? All empty folders (and subfolders) under Cust1, Cust2, Cust3 to be deleted. – Nicotinism 16/10, 2019 at 10:30

The answer works pretty fine when I test it with "junk" folders. But I have somewhere like +60k folders and around +1000 are empty and I want to delete these +1000 folders but I'm afraid it would delete other files too. Where can I find the deleted empty/not empty folders after running this script because they are not visible in the RecycleBin ? – Versed 10/12, 2021 at 12:19

100

You need to keep a few key things in mind when looking at a problem like this:

Get-ChildItem -Recurse performs head recursion, meaning it returns folders as soon as it finds them when walking through a tree. Since you want to remove empty folders, and also remove their parent if they are empty after you remove the empty folders, you need to use tail recursion instead, which processes the folders from the deepest child up to the root. By using tail recursion, there will be no need for repeated calls to the code that removes the empty folders -- one call will do it all for you.
Get-ChildItem does not return hidden files or folders by default. As a result you need to take extra steps to ensure that you don't remove folders that appear empty but that contain hidden files or folders. Get-Item and Get-ChildItem both have a -Force parameter which can be used to retrieve hidden files or folders as well as visible files or folders.

With those points in mind, here is a solution that uses tail recursion and that properly tracks hidden files or folders, making sure to remove hidden folders if they are empty and also making sure to keep folders that may contain one or more hidden files.

First this is the script block (anonymous function) that does the job:

# A script block (anonymous function) that will remove empty folders
# under a root folder, using tail-recursion to ensure that it only
# walks the folder tree once. -Force is used to be able to process
# hidden files/folders as well.
$tailRecursion = {
    param(
        $Path
    )
    foreach ($childDirectory in Get-ChildItem -Force -LiteralPath $Path -Directory) {
        & $tailRecursion -Path $childDirectory.FullName
    }
    $currentChildren = Get-ChildItem -Force -LiteralPath $Path
    $isEmpty = $currentChildren -eq $null
    if ($isEmpty) {
        Write-Verbose "Removing empty folder at path '${Path}'." -Verbose
        Remove-Item -Force -LiteralPath $Path
    }
}

If you want to test it here's code that will create interesting test data (make sure you don't already have a folder c:\a because it will be deleted):

# This creates some test data under C:\a (make sure this is not
# a directory you care about, because this will remove it if it
# exists). This test data contains a directory that is hidden
# that should be removed as well as a file that is hidden in a
# directory that should not be removed.
Remove-Item -Force -Path C:\a -Recurse
New-Item -Force -Path C:\a\b\c\d -ItemType Directory > $null
$hiddenFolder = Get-Item -Force -LiteralPath C:\a\b\c
$hiddenFolder.Attributes = $hiddenFolder.Attributes -bor [System.IO.FileAttributes]::Hidden
New-Item -Force -Path C:\a\b\e -ItemType Directory > $null
New-Item -Force -Path C:\a\f -ItemType Directory > $null
New-Item -Force -Path C:\a\f\g -ItemType Directory > $null
New-Item -Force -Path C:\a\f\h -ItemType Directory > $null
Out-File -Force -FilePath C:\a\f\test.txt -InputObject 'Dummy file'
Out-File -Force -FilePath C:\a\f\h\hidden.txt -InputObject 'Hidden file'
$hiddenFile = Get-Item -Force -LiteralPath C:\a\f\h\hidden.txt
$hiddenFile.Attributes = $hiddenFile.Attributes -bor [System.IO.FileAttributes]::Hidden

Here's how you use it. Note that this will remove the top folder (the C:\a folder in this example, which gets created if you generated the test data using the script above) if that folder winds up being empty after deleting all empty folders under it.

& $tailRecursion -Path 'C:\a'

Beanie answered 20/2, 2015 at 20:22 Comment(13)

This is a fabulous answer. Edit pending to remark that the code also removes the start folder if that winds up empty. – Circus 30/7, 2015 at 18:46

Thanks Richard, both for the positive feedback and for the edit -- it's definitely worth noting that the root/start folder may be removed if it is empty as well. – Beanie 31/7, 2015 at 19:42

@KirkMunro I came across a number of answers on technet and elsewhere that do not work properly, you've got the only good one I've seen so far. – Multiplechoice 5/3, 2016 at 5:54

I second what @Hart-CO said. This is the only answer I've found that really gets it all right. Thanks for sharing! – Vegetarianism 26/5, 2017 at 1:19

Note that this will also remove the root folder, my contribution would be to validate if RootPath <> Path, then remove { if ($IsEmpty && $Path -ne $RootPath) { Write-Verbose "Removing empty folder at path '${Path}'." -Verbose }} – Laudable 11/3, 2019 at 19:9

@KatLimRuiz what would that look like? – Publicize 8/5, 2019 at 16:12

@bricktop if ($IsEmpty) { # only remove if it is not the root if ($Path -ne $InPath) { Write-Output ">> Deleting empty folder ${InPath}" Remove-Item -Force -LiteralPath $InPath } } – Laudable 8/5, 2019 at 19:33

Nube question: Is there something special about the $Path param? It was working fine, and then I was trying to rename it using a different parameter name instead of '$Path' and when I bulk changed all the $Path references to (e.g.) $foo, the anonymous function doesn't work - it says "Get-ChildItem : Cannot bind argument to parameter 'LiteralPath' because it is null." <-- this is happening by calling "& $tailRecursion -Path 'C:\a'" in the same manner as when it the anonymous function uses $Path vs $foo – Galina 19/11, 2020 at 18:7

@tb1: No there isn't anything special about the $Path parameter. To change the $Path parameter name, you need to change both the parameter itself in the 5 locations where it is used as $Path or ${Path} as well as the parameter in the 2 locations where it is used to invoke the anonymous function recursively and outside the function (e.g. -Path). – Beanie 20/11, 2020 at 22:27

@KirkMunro: This is my result which fails (using same string path that works in original eg calling "& $tailRecursion -Path 'C:\a'"): $tailRecursion = { param( $foo ) foreach ($childDirectory in Get-ChildItem -Force -LiteralPath $foo -Directory) { & $tailRecursion -Path $childDirectory.FullName } $currentChildren = Get-ChildItem -Force -LiteralPath $foo $isEmpty = $currentChildren -eq $null if ($isEmpty) { Write-Verbose "Removing empty folder at path '${foo}'." -Verbose Remove-Item -Force -LiteralPath $foo } } – Galina 25/11, 2020 at 13:19

@tb1: You replaced the parameter variable name in the 5 locations where it needed to be replaced, but you didn't replace the parameter name in the invocations. Make sure you replace & $tailRecursion -Path with & $tailRecursion -foo. There are two instances of this in your modified code, one outside the anonymous function, and one inside of it. Once you make those additional changes, then it will work. – Beanie 26/11, 2020 at 16:37

@KirkMunro thank you I couldn't see the trees through the forest! – Galina 27/11, 2020 at 13:43

@KatLimRuiz I don't see InPath ever being set ?? – Seismography 4/12, 2022 at 18:34

You can use this:

$tdc="C:\a\c\d"
$dirs = gci $tdc -directory -recurse | Where { (gci $_.fullName).count -eq 0 } | select -expandproperty FullName
$dirs | Foreach-Object { Remove-Item $_ }

$dirs will be an array of empty directories returned from the Get-ChildItem command after filtering. You can then loop over it to remove the items.

Update

If you want to remove directories that contain empty directories, you just need to keep running the script until they're all gone. You can loop until $dirs is empty:

$tdc="C:\a\c\d"
do {
  $dirs = gci $tdc -directory -recurse | Where { (gci $_.fullName).count -eq 0 } | select -expandproperty FullName
  $dirs | Foreach-Object { Remove-Item $_ }
} while ($dirs.count -gt 0)

If you want to ensure that hidden files and folders will also be removed, include the -Force flag:

do {
  $dirs = gci $tdc -directory -recurse | Where { (gci $_.fullName -Force).count -eq 0 } | select -expandproperty FullName
  $dirs | Foreach-Object { Remove-Item $_ }
} while ($dirs.count -gt 0)