How to Remove Empty Directories with PowerShell, or Robocopy

16 thoughts on “How to Remove Empty Directories with PowerShell, or Robocopy”

1. thanks, but still not working !!, EG. i have a folder with 3 files contained 2x *.mrk and 1x *.Mrk. this does not have any .msg files so is actually empty, i need the script to force delete the folder if it ONLY has .mrk or Mrk files and no .msg.

   I actually got it working but had to bodge it by running attrib to change all of the .mrk files to HIDDEN, then run the function.

   attrib /s +H “d:\mdaemon\Users\jst.co.uk\$todo\Deleted Items.IMAP\*.mrk”
   attrib -H “d:\mdaemon\Users\jst.co.uk\$todo\Deleted Items.IMAP\*.mrk”
   Delete-EmptyFolder -path “e:\testdel”
   attrib /s -H “d:\mdaemon\Users\jst.co.uk\$todo\Deleted Items.IMAP\*.mrk”

   this works but a faff.

2. hi, got this working on truely EMPTY folders but I need to have a folder that contains only certain extensions deleted too.

   E.G. I have a “deleted items.IMAP” folder on our email server that holds all my deleted messages and folders/subfolders. I have a script that correctly removes any old .msg files over 30 days but it is leaving the folders creating 1000’s.

   although these folders are empty of .msg files they all contain some special files used by the server, these have the extension of .mrk or .Mrk, i need the script to delete all folders that do NOT have any .msg files inside, and treat them as empty even if they still have the /mrk files inside.

   any ideas as yours has been the closest script ive found so far.

   thanks
   Steve

   • If you add an include filter to the Get-ChildItem cmdlet, it should work

     # Line 21
     $subItems = Get-ChildItem -Force:$getHiddelFiles -LiteralPath $path -Include ("*.msg")
     

3. I know this is old…but I am getting Argument Exception with the remove command saying access to the path is denied at line 28

   • The script outputs the path of the empty folder that it is trying to delete. You can manually delete the folder in question? Because it looks like a permission issue.

4. Hi,

   I’m trying to learn PS and had a quick question. Is there a way a good way to exclude multiple folder names with some type of array? The only way I could get it to work is by below. I need a bunch of exclusions so obviously my way is not an ideal method:

   # Get all child items
   $subItems = Get-ChildItem -Force:$getHiddelFiles -LiteralPath $path
   # If there are no items, then we can delete the folder
   If (($subItems -eq $null) -and (-Not($path.contains(‘exclusion1’) -and (-Not($path.contains(‘exclusion2’))))))
   #If ($subItems -eq $null)
   {
   Write-Host “Removing empty folder ‘${path}'”
   Remove-Item -Force -Recurse:$removeHiddenFiles -LiteralPath $Path -WhatIf:$whatIf
   }

   • Something like this, only it might be better to compare the path of the childitem. Don’t know where $path is coming from now…

     
$exclusions = @(
'exclusion1',
'exclusion2'
)

     # Get all child items
     $subItems = Get-ChildItem -Force:$getHiddelFiles -LiteralPath $path | Where-Object {$path -notin $exclusions}

     # If there are no items, then we can delete the folder
If ($subItems -eq $null){
Write-Host “Removing empty folder ‘${path}'”
Remove-Item -Force -Recurse:$removeHiddenFiles -LiteralPath $Path -WhatIf:$whatIf
}


5. Hello,
   I know this is an old thread, but I would like to ask, as a complete newbie to powershell, if there is a way to getting the script to not delete, but hide all empty folders, and subfolders?

   Thank you

   • You will have to set the attribute hidden for each folder:

     
$folder.attributes='Hidden'


6. Thank you very much for this PowerShell script example. I made an adjustment to speed up the processing for folder paths that have many thousands of subfolders. My example below also includes an exclusion statement for paths containing the string “.snapshot”. This excludes them from being tested for being empty.

   # Set to true to test the script
   $whatIf = $false

   # Remove hidden files, like thumbs.db
   $removeHiddenFiles = $false

   # Get hidden files or not. Depending on removeHiddenFiles setting
   $getHiddelFiles = !$removeHiddenFiles

   # Remove empty directories locally
   Function Delete-EmptyFolder($path)
   {
   # Go through each subfolder,
   $topleveldirectories = Get-ChildItem -Path $path -Directory -Force -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue | Select-Object FullName | Where-Object {($_.FullName -notlike “*.snapshot*”)}
   Foreach ($topleveldirectory in $topleveldirectories)
   {
   # Call the function recursively
   Delete-EmptyFolder -path $topleveldirectory.FullName
   }

   # Get all child items
   $subItems = Get-ChildItem -Force:$getHiddelFiles -LiteralPath $path

   # If there are no items, then we can delete the folder
   # Exlude folder: If (($subItems -eq $null) -and (-Not($path.contains(“DfsrPrivate”))))
   If ($subItems -eq $null)
   {
   Write-Host “Removing empty folder ‘${path}'”
   Remove-Item -Force -Recurse:$removeHiddenFiles -LiteralPath $Path -WhatIf:$whatIf
   }
   }

   # Run the script
   Delete-EmptyFolder -path “I:\”

7. I want to thank you for the above. Very well done! Easy to understand and tailor. Wanted to share a small change I made to allow you to load a directory list from a file and run through that file until all items have been processed.
   When I run, I run this like this from Powershell terminal:

   ./script.ps1 >> logfile.txt
   RemoveEmptyDir_LIST.txt is the text file i created, and it’s as simple as a path per line.

   Thanks again!

   # Set to true to test the script
$whatIf = $false
# Remove hidden files, like thumbs.db
$removeHiddenFiles = $true
# Get hidden files or not. Depending on removeHiddenFiles setting
$getHiddelFiles = !$removeHiddenFiles
# Remove empty directories locally
Function Delete-EmptyFolder($path)
{
# Go through each subfolder,
Foreach ($subFolder in Get-ChildItem -Force -Literal $path -Directory)
{
# Call the function recursively
Delete-EmptyFolder -path $subFolder.FullName
}
# Get all child items
$subItems = Get-ChildItem -Force:$getHiddelFiles -LiteralPath $path
# If there are no items, then we can delete the folder
# Exluce folder: If (($subItems -eq $null) -and (-Not($path.contains("DfsrPrivate"))))
If ($subItems -eq $null)
{
Write-Output "$(Get-Date) : Removing empty folder '${path}'"
Remove-Item -Force -Recurse:$removeHiddenFiles -LiteralPath $Path -WhatIf:$whatIf
}
}
# Run the script - ### added the load from text file section below.
$collection = Get-Content c:\PS_Scripts\RemoveEmptyDir_LIST.txt
ForEach ($item in $collection) {if (Test-Path $item) { try { Delete-EmptyFolder -path $item } catch {throw $_.Exception.Message }}
else
{ Write-Output "$(Get-Date) : ERROR - Path does not exist: '${item}'" } }

8. Hello, your script delete also the fist directory….
   Example :
   C:\TEST\TEST_J-7\xxxxxxxx
   I need preserve TEST_J-7 directory
   even if it remains empty. it is only the subdirectories that I want to delete.

9. Why not just do this with Robocopy ?

   Of course, it does not do a “WhatIf” and also thumbs.db are not included now, but it does the trick in most cases:

   ROBOCOPY folder1 folder1 /S /MOVE

   • Robocopy is indeed a good alternative. I just love to work with PowerShell, but I will update the article

10. Need to remove # in front of remove-Item for this to work, not made clear above, once that’s done, worked a treat, thanks

    • Fixed it.