Reputation: 152284
Using PowerShell, is it possible to remove some directory that contains files without prompting to confirm action?
Upvotes: 417
Views: 618398
Reputation: 257
It looks cumbersome, but I use this to have everything reliably deleted, even if there are very long pathname\filenames (exceeding 259 characters):
&mkdir empty_dummy_directory >$Null
&robocopy empty_dummy_directory $folder /mir >$Null
&rmdir empty_dummy_directory
&rmdir $folder
Source of the solution and some more details and discussions are here.
Upvotes: -1
Reputation: 17246
2018 Update
In the current version of PowerShell (tested with v5.1 on Windows 10 and Windows 11 in 2023) one can use the simpler Unix syntax rm -R .\DirName
to silently delete the directory .\DirName
with all subdirectories and files it may contain. In fact many common Unix commands work in the same way in PowerShell as in a Linux command line.
One can also clean up a folder, but not the folder itself, using rm -R .\DirName\*
(noted by Jeff in the comments).
Upvotes: 50
Reputation: 4895
If you want to concatenate a variable with a fixed path and a string as the dynamic path into a whole path to remove the folder, you may need the following command:
$fixPath = "C:\Users\myUserName\Desktop"
Remove-Item ("$fixPath" + "\Folder\SubFolder") -Recurse
In the variable $newPath
the concatenate path is now: "C:\Users\myUserName\Desktop\Folder\SubFolder"
So you can remove several directories from the starting point ("C:\Users\myUserName\Desktop"
), which is already defined and fixed in the variable $fixPath
.
$fixPath = "C:\Users\myUserName\Desktop"
Remove-Item ("$fixPath" + "\Folder\SubFolder") -Recurse
Remove-Item ("$fixPath" + "\Folder\SubFolder1") -Recurse
Remove-Item ("$fixPath" + "\Folder\SubFolder2") -Recurse
Upvotes: 1
Reputation: 9028
Remove-Item -LiteralPath "foldertodelete" -Force -Recurse
or, with shorter version
rm /path -r -force
Upvotes: 608
Reputation: 31
Some multi-level directory folders need to be deleted twice, which has troubled me for a long time. Here is my final code, it works for me, and cleans up nicely, hope it helps.
function ForceDelete {
[CmdletBinding()]
param(
[string] $path
)
rm -r -fo $path
if (Test-Path -Path $path){
Start-Sleep -Seconds 1
Write-Host "Force delete retrying..." -ForegroundColor white -BackgroundColor red
rm -r -fo $path
}
}
ForceDelete('.\your-folder-name')
ForceDelete('.\your-file-name.php')
Upvotes: 1
Reputation: 4328
Powershell works with relative folders. The Remove-Item
has couple of useful aliases which aligns with unix. Some examples:
rm -R -Force ./directory
del -R -Force ./directory/*
Upvotes: 6
Reputation: 1040
in short, We can use rm -r -fo {folderName}
to remove the folder recursively (remove all the files and folders inside) and force
Upvotes: 27
Reputation: 401
$LogPath = "E:\" # Your local of directories
$Folders = Get-Childitem $LogPath -dir -r | Where-Object {$_.name -like "*grav*"} # Your keyword name directories
foreach ($Folder in $Folders)
{
$Item = $Folder.FullName
Write-Output $Item
Remove-Item $Item -Force -Recurse -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
}
Upvotes: 1
Reputation: 127
If you have your folder as an object, let's say that you created it in the same script using next command:
$folder = New-Item -ItemType Directory -Force -Path "c:\tmp" -Name "myFolder"
Then you can just remove it like this in the same script
$folder.Delete($true)
$true - states for recursive removal
Upvotes: 1
Reputation: 138
Since my directory was in C:\users I had to run my powershell as administrator,
del ./[your Folder name] -Force -Recurse
this command worked for me.
Upvotes: 2
Reputation: 401
$LogPath = "E:\" # Your local of directories
$Folders = Get-Childitem $LogPath -dir -r | Where-Object {$_.name -like "*temp*"}
foreach ($Folder in $Folders)
{
$Item = $Folder.FullName
Write-Output $Item
Remove-Item $Item -Force -Recurse
}
Upvotes: 2
Reputation: 185
To delete content without a folder you can use the following:
Remove-Item "foldertodelete\*" -Force -Recurse
Upvotes: 13
Reputation: 3857
Below is a copy-pasteable implementation of Michael Freidgeim's answer
function Delete-FolderAndContents {
# http://stackoverflow.com/a/9012108
param(
[Parameter(Mandatory=$true, Position=1)] [string] $folder_path
)
process {
$child_items = ([array] (Get-ChildItem -Path $folder_path -Recurse -Force))
if ($child_items) {
$null = $child_items | Remove-Item -Force -Recurse
}
$null = Remove-Item $folder_path -Force
}
}
Upvotes: 4
Reputation: 810
This worked for me:
Remove-Item $folderPath -Force -Recurse -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
Thus the folder is removed with all files in there and it is not producing error if folder path doesn't exists.
Upvotes: 70
Reputation: 28501
From PowerShell remove force answer: help Remove-Item says:
The Recurse parameter in this cmdlet does not work properly
The command to workaround is
Get-ChildItem -Path $Destination -Recurse | Remove-Item -force -recurse
And then delete the folder itself
Remove-Item $Destination -Force
Upvotes: 90
Reputation: 313
rm -Force -Recurse -Confirm:$false $directory2Delete
didn't work in the PowerShell ISE, but it worked through the regular PowerShell CLI.
I hope this helps. It was driving me bannanas.
Upvotes: 10