This includes running calculations first, which, in itself may take a very long time to complete. Then comes the deletion part, even if you choose to delete the folders permanently force delete. Then when the actual deleting takes place, Windows analyzes the process and posts updates to the file operation window.
It may take ten or twenty minutes, or even longer, to delete a large folder of size greater than 10 GB, for instance from your hard disk using Explorer on Windows devices. If you run delete commands from the command line instead, you will notice that the operation completes a lot faster. You may notice that the operation needs just a fraction of the time that the same operation requires when you run it in Explorer. Matt Pilz , who wrote about this back in saw a reduction from 11 minutes to 29 seconds, which made the command line operation more than 20 times faster than the Explorer option.
The downside to this is that it requires the use of the command line. Matt suggested adding the commands to the Explorer context menu so that users could run them in Explorer directly. This makes it both faster and easier. The two commands that users require are Del, for deleting files, and Rmdir, for removing directories. If you don't need to run the command often, you may be perfectly fine running the commands directly from the command prompt.
However, if you do use it frequently, you may prefer to optimize the process. You may add the command to the Explorer context menu so that you can run it from there directly. This saves even more time without depending on a third-party software.
For this, the first thing you need to do is create a batch file. Create a new plain text document on Windows, and paste the following lines of code into it. Save the file as delete. Make sure it has the.
You can do this by selecting Save as type as All Files. The batch file comes with a security prompt. This provides you with an option to stop the process; important if you have selected the context menu item by accident. If you press any other key, all folders and files will be deleted without any option to stop the process.
You need to add the batch file to a location that is a PATH-environment variable. While you may create your own variable, you may also move it to a folder that is already supported; e. In other words, you need to place this. Do the following to add the new batch file to delete folders quickly to the Windows Explorer context menu.
If you want to speed up the deletion process even further, you can always check some third-party tool like byenow. I wish we could finally move away from NTFS after 24 years and embrace something new. You can install ReFS on Desktops too but there is not much noticeable benefit using it, except that you get encryption problem.
If the only improvement is max volume- and filesize then it was another dud. EXT4 will continue to outperform any MS filesystem. It is just that I would like something new. If the issues discussed here are not at least partially caused by the underlying FS, what else? In order to simply the registry changes, I exported the registry entries as.
Thanks for the useful article. I enjoy going back to DOS techniques to get something efficiently accomplished. How strange! I tend to maintain the last three versions of system image which are usually about 45GB each.
I delete the oldest one before creating a new one each month, but apart from the prompt informing me that I need Admin permission to delete it, the actual deletion process takes less than ten seconds.
Yes, these are copy utilities, but most have delete capabilities. However, it is significantly faster, especially when you have a lot of subfolders in your structure to use del before the rmdir, like this:. The deltree command could do this, but Micrsoft, in its infinite "wisdom" removed the command and didn't port it to Windows.
Here's a solution that works without resorting to third-party tools. It's probably about as simple and efficient as is possible with a command-line script instead of outright writing an actual executable. It doesn't set any environment variables and it doesn't use any loops. It's also as safe as can be, with error-checking everywhere possible, and also as user-friendly as possible, with built-in docs.
If you like, you can comment the script with the above descriptions using rem or If you want to delete all files in a folder, including all subfolders and not rely on some error conditions to keep the root folder intact like I saw in another answer you could have a batch file like this:. To delete all subdirectories and their contents use robocopy.
To delete all files from specific folder not deleting folder itself is a little bit complicated. So two commands are needed:. You can create a script to delete whatever you want folder or file like this mydel. Seems like CMD process cannot process itself just like 'I can't throw myself into rubbish bin because the rubbish bin need to be seal by someone'. If OP has some oddly specific requirement to not touch the top-level directory in any capacity Here's a two-line solution I just came up with, possibly exploiting a bug or unexpected behavior in robocopy.
This works with the newest version of cmd and robocopy on Windows 10 at this writing. It mirror syncs an empty sub-folder to its parent folder. In other words, it tells the parent folder to have all the same files as the sub-folder: none.
Amusingly, this means it also deletes the empty sub-folder that it is instructed to sync with. This example will empty the Temp folder for the current user. Sign up to join this community. The best answers are voted up and rise to the top. Stack Overflow for Teams — Collaborate and share knowledge with a private group. Create a free Team What is Teams? Learn more. Ask Question. Asked 11 years, 5 months ago. Active 8 months ago. Viewed k times.
Improve this question. Not to nitpick, but you're looking for how do do this "from the command prompt" not from "DOS.
See also stackoverflow. Add a comment. Learn more. Batch delete all files and directories except specified file and directory [duplicate] Ask Question. Asked 2 years, 5 months ago. Active 2 years, 5 months ago.
Viewed 11k times. Jake J Jake J 59 1 1 gold badge 1 1 silver badge 6 6 bronze badges. Take a look at this and this and this and this and this post I tried those all before posting. Add a comment. Active Oldest Votes. Please remember to be considerate of other members. All submitted content is subject to our Terms Of Use. I'm trying to remember how to delete all files, subdirectories, and subdirectory contents from a specific directory from a command prompt.
We have a "catch all" folder for short-term file sharing and I want to delete the contents nightly, but not the folder itself, using a scheduled command procedure. RMDIR won't take a wildcard.
Share Flag. All Answers. Collapse -. Unfortunately, the path changes regularly. This is not the best idea This may help. The subdirectory names change daily.
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