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Windows Forum / Windows XP / Basics / April 2007How to empty a folder tree?
It would be useful to me learning how I can delete files from some base folder including all its subfolders, but keeping the folder structure, so I dont have to recreate them every time I backup and cleanup. Every other method, I cant think of, to achieve the goal is fine to me as well, of course. thank you ric From the Command Prompt navigate to the first directory in the tree and issue: del *.* /s /q Be certain that you are in the right directory! It will erase all the files from the directory in which the command was issued on down! The files will be permanently deleted, del does not use the Recycle Bin! John > It would be useful to me learning how I can delete files from some base > folder including all its subfolders, but keeping the folder structure, so I [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > thank you > ric > From the Command Prompt navigate to the first directory in the tree > and issue: [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > > John In XP Pro you don't need either of the switches. Just del *.* in the highest level directory will do it. It surprised me, but it worked, and of course left all the subdirectories in place. The switches don't hurt anything, of course. I don't care for /Q personally, because I like the 'Are you Sure' reminder message. HTH Pop` >> It would be useful to me learning how I can delete files from some >> base folder including all its subfolders, but keeping the folder [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] >> thank you >> ric >>From the Command Prompt navigate to the first directory in the tree >>and issue: [quoted text clipped - 13 lines] > I don't care for /Q personally, because I like the 'Are you Sure' > reminder message. I find it surprising that on your XP Pro del *.* without any switches would erase files in subfolders! The expected results of the command is that it erases all the files in the current directory only. It would also surprise me that this would be specific to XP Pro but not XP Home. I wonder if any other users here are seeing the same behaviour with the command. I can't verify right now but maybe other users could give us their results. It seems to me it would be a bug if it behaves that way! John > >>From the Command Prompt navigate to the first directory in the tree > >>and issue: > >> > >>del *.* /s /q Oh Thanks John, it worked fine! Also, in my xp pro there is no bug: the switch is needed. I'd also keep the /q switch, it's safer and prevents from hurrying too much... Regards, Ricardo >>>>From the Command Prompt navigate to the first directory in the tree >>> [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > Also, in my xp pro there is no bug: the switch is needed. > I'd also keep the /q switch, it's safer and prevents from hurrying too much... You're welcome. Thanks fo the follow up. John ... > I find it surprising that on your XP Pro del *.* without any > switches would erase files in subfolders! The expected results of [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > that way! > John You're right, of course! My bad, and a big blunder at that! It happened as I said it did, but ... because I had set the environment variables! So, I CAN reproduce it, but ... only by setting those same variables again. My bad! Actually I'm kicking myself for being so stupid because I work at the Command Prompt all the time and obviously wasn't paying attention because I know better!! Won't happen again; I hope!!! So much for "proofing" it before I posted. Regards, Pop` > ... > [quoted text clipped - 18 lines] > know better!! Won't happen again; I hope!!! > So much for "proofing" it before I posted. I kind of thought that something wasn't right, I thought for sure that something was wrong with your XP installation. John Hello, Perform an empty search on the folder, sort by type (folders will go to top), select all the files by selecting the first file item and then hitting shift-end to select, hit delete.  SignatureSingapore Website Design http://www.bootstrike.com/Webdesign/ Singapore Web Hosting http://www.bootstrike.com/WinXP/faq.html Windows XP FAQ > It would be useful to me learning how I can delete files from some base > folder including all its subfolders, but keeping the folder structure, so [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > thank you > ric > Hello, > > Perform an empty search on the folder, sort by type (folders will go to > top), select all the files by selecting the first file item and then hitting > shift-end to select, hit delete. Nice method, unless the number of files is too large...I dont like to wait for hard drive scanning and select 10.000 files or more...beside that I'll keep it in mind, good trick. Thank you so much. Bye, Ricardo |
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