CODEWITHSUNDEEP
batch-filerecursion
denywinarto
denywinarto

Reputation: 45

Batch to delete all except certain extensions recursively

I need to delete content of a folder recursively except specific extensions to prevent it from being overflowed with non-office files.

I tried this:

@echo off
SET ROOTDIR=E:\Testdel\
for /f %%F in ('dir %ROOTDIR% /b /a-d ^| findstr /vile ".xls .xlt .xlm .xlsx .xlsm .xltx .xltm .ppt .pot .pps .pptx .pptm .potx .ppam .ppsx .sldx .sldm .pdf .xls .doc .dot .docx. .html .docm .dotb .docb .tiff .jpg .png .cdr .cpt .psd"') do del "%%F"

But it outputs the error:

Could Not Find C:\Users\username\New

Any idea why?

Upvotes: 0

Views: 1132

Answers (1)

Usman Shahid Amin
Usman Shahid Amin

Reputation: 261

This is because the default delimiter is delim=<tab><space> so it splits file names by spaces. Also, if you want to recursively delete the files then you have to specify the /s flag for dir. Try this:

@echo off
set ROOTDIR=E:\Testdel\
for /f "delims=" %%F in ('dir %ROOTDIR% /s /b /a-d ^|findstr /vile ".xls .xlt .xlm .xlsx .xlsm .xltx .xltm .ppt .pot .pps .pptx .pptm .potx .ppam .ppsx .sldx .sldm .pdf .xls .doc .dot .docx .html .docm .dotb .docb .tiff .jpg .png .cdr .cpt .psd"') do del "%%F"

Note: Wikibooks - Windows Batch Scripting: Switches mentions that generally, switches cannot be accumulated behind a single slash. It also mentions that the findstr command is an exception and allows /v /i /l /e to be combined into /vile as a shortcut. This also means that order here doesn't matter and /vile = /live = any other ordering (this was pointed out by Mofi). There may be other commands that support this, however since they are exceptions, its a good idea to separate the switches as this would work in all cases and would cause less confusion.

Upvotes: 4

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