Deleting files folder using dos command

However, the subdirectories within the folder will not be changed at all. Refer to the example below to fully understand the concept:. You can also make another tweak to the command so that it is executed silently and you will not be prompted for confirmation.

Here is how:. Similar to Del and Erase, rmdir and rd are also aliases for one another, which means to remove directory. These commands are used to remove the entire directory and subdirectories recursively including their contents. Use the command below to do so:.

If a folder has subdirectories, you might get the following prompt:. In this case, we will need to apply the option for recursive deletion of items as we have done earlier with the Del command.

Up until now, we have completed the task of deleting single items per command. Here is a before and after comparison of the directory where both of the above commands were executed:.

However, Microsoft has removed the support for the use of asterisks with rmdir so that users do not accidentally remove entire folders. We are working on removing content within the current working directory. However, you can also use the commands we have discussed till now to remove files and folders from any directory within your computer. Simply put the complete path of the item you want to delete in enclosed parenthesis, and it shall be removed, as in the example below:.

We have already discussed that you can view the contents of the working directory by typing in Dir in Command Prompt. If it will not, the action would not be taken. The commands in Windows PowerShell to delete and remove content from your PC are very much similar to those of Command Prompt, with a few additional aliases. The overall functionality and logic are the same.

We recommend that you launch Windows PowerShell with administrative privileges before proceeding. The main thing to note here is that unlike Command Prompt, all commands can be used for both purposes — removing individual files as well as complete directories. We ask you to be careful while using PowerShell to delete files and folders, as the directory itself is also removed.

The good thing is that you do not need to specify recursive action. If a directory has sub-directories, PowerShell will confirm whether you wish to continue with your deletion, which will also include all child objects subdirectories. However, it can be supposed that nobody ever runs into this very special error case as UNC paths are usually not used for accessing local files and folders.

For understanding the used commands even better, open a command prompt window, execute there the following commands, and read the help displayed for each command very carefully. The batch file first makes sure that environment variable PathToFolder is really defined with a folder path without double quotes and without a backslash at the end.

The backslash at the end would not be a problem, but double quotes in a folder path could be problematic because of the value of PathToFolder is concatenated with other strings during batch file execution. FOR processes the captured output written to handle STDOUT of a started command process which are the names of the subdirectories without path and never enclosed in double quotes.

FOR would also ignore lines starting with a semicolon which is the default end of line character. A directory name can start with a semicolon.

This splitting behavior is not wanted here because of a directory name can contain one or more spaces. Command FOR runs the command RD for each directory name without a path which is the reason why on the RD command line the folder path must be specified once again which is concatenated with the subfolder name. For understanding the used commands and how they work, open a command prompt window, execute there the following commands, and read entirely all help pages displayed for each command very carefully.

Use this to remove an entire folder tree. You can do it by using the following command to delete all contents and the parent folder itself:.

To delete all files from specific folder not deleting folder itself is a little bit complicated. So two commands are needed:. I found this two-step approach on the site Windows Command Line :. Stack Overflow for Teams — Collaborate and share knowledge with a private group. Create a free Team What is Teams?

Collectives on Stack Overflow. Learn more. Asked 12 years ago. Active 1 year, 4 months ago. Viewed 1. Is there some command for this? Peter Mortensen Deniz Zoeteman Deniz Zoeteman 9, 24 24 gold badges 67 67 silver badges 96 96 bronze badges. Possible duplicate of What ever happened to deltree, and what's its replacement? It is insane how difficult Windows makes deleting folders Or making one that starts with a dot Thank god for Bash integration in Windows! Add a comment. Active Oldest Votes. The Red Pea Suresh Suresh 4, 1 1 gold badge 11 11 silver badges 2 2 bronze badges.

This seems to remove the pathtofolder the OP was wanting to keep. What do you mean by "backup is created" here? I cannot see anything that would create any kind of backup The Directory is not empty Message came as response! In order not to remove the folder itself, make it the current directory before, then use ". Re-creating it afterwards is not neccessarily the same because ACLs could be lost. Show 5 more comments.

Community Bot 1 1 1 silver badge. Iain Iain 6, 2 2 gold badges 28 28 silver badges 49 49 bronze badges. I tried it but unfortunately files where not deleted, only the sub-folders are deleted. For example I have a folder named Test. The subfolders Ripon and Wasim was deleted but riponalwasim.

Use single percentage sign if you wish to run direct from command line e. Sad that this takes 2 lines, but at least it works!

Delete only operates in the system directories of the current Windows installation, removable media, the root directory of any hard disk partition , or the local installation sources. Del and delete do not support replaceable parameters wildcards. In Microsoft Windows, deleted items go to the Recycle Bin.

Use the rmdir or deltree command to delete directories. The use of this command in the above example would delete any file ending with "est.