C# Remove all empty subdirectories

I have a task to clean up a large number of directories. I want to start at a directory and delete any sub-directories (no matter how deep) that contain no files (files will never be deleted, only directories). The starting directory will then be deleted if it contains no files or subdirectories. I was hoping someone could point me to some existing code for this rather than having to reinvent the wheel. I will be doing this using C#.

Using C# Code.

static void Main(string[] args)
{
    processDirectory(@"c:\temp");
}

private static void processDirectory(string startLocation)
{
    foreach (var directory in Directory.GetDirectories(startLocation))
    {
        processDirectory(directory);
        if (Directory.GetFiles(directory).Length == 0 && 
            Directory.GetDirectories(directory).Length == 0)
        {
            Directory.Delete(directory, false);
        }
    }
}

If you can target the .NET 4.0 you can use the new methods on the Directory class to enumerate the directories in order to not pay a performance penalty in listing every file in a directory when you just want to know if there is at least one.

The methods are:

• Directory.EnumerateDirectories
• Directory.EnumerateFiles
• Directory.EnumerateFileSystemEntries

A possible implementation using recursion:

static void Main(string[] args)
{
    DeleteEmptyDirs("Start");
}

static void DeleteEmptyDirs(string dir)
{
    if (String.IsNullOrEmpty(dir))
        throw new ArgumentException(
            "Starting directory is a null reference or an empty string", 
            "dir");

    try
    {
        foreach (var d in Directory.EnumerateDirectories(dir))
        {
            DeleteEmptyDirs(d);
        }

        var entries = Directory.EnumerateFileSystemEntries(dir);

        if (!entries.Any())
        {
            try
            {
                Directory.Delete(dir);
            }
            catch (UnauthorizedAccessException) { }
            catch (DirectoryNotFoundException) { }
        }
    }
    catch (UnauthorizedAccessException) { }
}

You also mention that the directory tree could be very deep so it's possible you might get some exceptions if the path you are probing are too long.

Running the test on C:\Windows 1000 times on the 3 methods mentioned so far yielded this:

GetFiles+GetDirectories:630ms
GetFileSystemEntries:295ms
EnumerateFileSystemEntries.Any:71ms

Running it on an empty folder yielded this (1000 times again):

GetFiles+GetDirectories:131ms
GetFileSystemEntries:66ms
EnumerateFileSystemEntries.Any:64ms

So EnumerateFileSystemEntries is by far the best overall when you are checking for empty folders.

Here's a version that takes advantage of parallel execution to get it done faster in some cases:

public static void DeleteEmptySubdirectories(string parentDirectory){
  System.Threading.Tasks.Parallel.ForEach(System.IO.Directory.GetDirectories(parentDirectory), directory => {
    DeleteEmptySubdirectories(directory);
    if(!System.IO.Directory.EnumerateFileSystemEntries(directory).Any()) System.IO.Directory.Delete(directory, false);
  });	
}

Here's the same code in single threaded mode:

public static void DeleteEmptySubdirectoriesSingleThread(string parentDirectory){
  foreach(string directory in System.IO.Directory.GetDirectories(parentDirectory)){
    DeleteEmptySubdirectories(directory);
    if(!System.IO.Directory.EnumerateFileSystemEntries(directory).Any()) System.IO.Directory.Delete(directory, false);
  }
}

... and here's some sample code you could use to test results in your scenario:

var stopWatch = new System.Diagnostics.Stopwatch();
for(int i = 0; i < 100; i++) {
  stopWatch.Restart();
  DeleteEmptySubdirectories(rootPath);
  stopWatch.Stop();
  StatusOutputStream.WriteLine("Parallel: "+stopWatch.ElapsedMilliseconds);
  stopWatch.Restart();
  DeleteEmptySubdirectoriesSingleThread(rootPath);
  stopWatch.Stop();
  StatusOutputStream.WriteLine("Single: "+stopWatch.ElapsedMilliseconds);
}

... and here're some results from my machine for a directory that is on a file share across a wide area network. This share currently has only 16 subfolders and 2277 files.

Parallel: 1479
Single: 4724
Parallel: 1691
Single: 5603
Parallel: 1540
Single: 4959
Parallel: 1592
Single: 4792
Parallel: 1671
Single: 4849
Parallel: 1485
Single: 4389

From here, Powershell script to remove empty directories:

$items = Get-ChildItem -Recurse

foreach($item in $items)
{
      if( $item.PSIsContainer )
      {
            $subitems = Get-ChildItem -Recurse -Path $item.FullName
            if($subitems -eq $null)
            {
                  "Remove item: " + $item.FullName
                  Remove-Item $item.FullName
            }
            $subitems = $null
      }
}

Note: use at own risk!

If you rely on DirectoryInfo.Delete only deleting empty directories, you can write a succinct extension method

public static void DeleteEmptyDirs(this DirectoryInfo dir)
{
    foreach (DirectoryInfo d in dir.GetDirectories())
        d.DeleteEmptyDirs();

    try { dir.Delete(); }
    catch (IOException) {}
    catch (UnauthorizedAccessException) {}
}

Usage:

static void Main()
{
    new DirectoryInfo(@"C:\temp").DeleteEmptyDirs();
}

    private static void deleteEmptySubFolders(string ffd, bool deleteIfFileSizeZero=false)
{
    DirectoryInfo di = new DirectoryInfo(ffd);
    foreach (DirectoryInfo diSon in di.GetDirectories("*", SearchOption.TopDirectoryOnly))
    {
        FileInfo[] fis = diSon.GetFiles("*.*", SearchOption.AllDirectories);
        if (fis == null || fis.Length < 1)
        {
            diSon.Delete(true);
        }
        else
        {
            if (deleteIfFileSizeZero)
            {
                long total = 0;
                foreach (FileInfo fi in fis)
                {
                    total = total + fi.Length;
                    if (total > 0)
                    {
                        break;
                    }
                }

                if (total == 0)
                {
                    diSon.Delete(true);
                    continue;
                }
            }

            deleteEmptySubFolders(diSon.FullName, deleteIfFileSizeZero);
        }
    }
}

//Recursive scan of empty dirs. See example output bottom

string startDir = @"d:\root";

void Scan(string dir, bool stepBack)
    {
        //directory not empty
        if (Directory.GetFileSystemEntries(dir).Length > 0)
        {
            if (!stepBack)
            {
                foreach (string subdir in Directory.GetDirectories(dir))
                    Scan(subdir, false);
            } 
        }
        //directory empty so delete it.
        else
        {
            Directory.Delete(dir);
            string prevDir = dir.Substring(0, dir.LastIndexOf("\\"));
            if (startDir.Length <= prevDir.Length)
                Scan(prevDir, true);
        }
    }
//call like this
Scan(startDir, false);

/*EXAMPLE outputof d:\root with empty subfolders and one filled with files
   Scanning d:\root
   Scanning d:\root\folder1 (not empty)
   Scanning d:\root\folder1\folder1sub1 (not empty)
   Scanning d:\root\folder1\folder1sub1\folder2sub2 (deleted!)
   Scanning d:\root\folder1\folder1sub1 (deleted!)
   Scanning d:\root\folder1 (deleted)
   Scanning d:\root (not empty)
   Scanning d:\root\folder2 (not empty)
   Scanning d:\root\folder2\folder2sub1 (deleted)
   Scanning d:\root\folder2 (not empty)
   Scanning d:\root\folder2\notempty (not empty) */

    foreach (var folder in Directory.GetDirectories(myDir, "*", System.IO.SearchOption.AllDirectories))
    {
        {
            try
            {
                if (Directory.GetFiles(folder, "*", System.IO.SearchOption.AllDirectories).Length == 0)
                    Directory.Delete(folder, true);
            }
            catch { }
        }
    }