Delete directory regardless of 260 char limit

I'm writing a simple script to delete USMT migration folders after a certain amount of days:

## Server List ##
$servers = "Delorean","Adelaide","Brisbane","Melbourne","Newcastle","Perth"

## Number of days (-3 is over three days ago) ##
$days = -3

$timelimit = (Get-Date).AddDays($days)

foreach ($server in $servers)
{
    $deletedusers = @()
    $folders = Get-ChildItem \\$server\USMT$ | where {$_.psiscontainer}
    write-host "Checking server : " $server
    foreach ($folder in $folders) 
    {
        If ($folder.LastWriteTime -lt $timelimit -And $folder -ne $null)
        {
            $deletedusers += $folder
            Remove-Item -recurse -force $folder.fullname
        }
    }
        write-host "Users deleted : " $deletedusers
        write-host
}

However I keep hitting the dreaded Remove-Item : The specified path, file name, or both are too long. The fully qualified file name must be less than 260 characters, and the directory name must be less than 248 characters.

I've been looking at workarounds and alternatives but they all revolve around me caring what is in the folder.

I was hoping for a more simple solution as I don't really care about the folder contents if it is marked for deletion.

Is there any native Powershell cmdlet other than Remove-Item -recurse that can accomplish what I'm after?

I often have this issue with node projects. They nest their dependencies and once git cloned, it's difficult to delete them. A nice node utility I came across is rimraf.

npm install rimraf -g
rimraf <dir>

Just as CADII said in another answer: Robocopy is able to create paths longer than the limit of 260 characters. Robocopy is also able to delete such paths. You can just mirror some empty folder over your path containing too long names in case you want to delete it.

For example:

robocopy C:\temp\some_empty_dir E:\temp\dir_containing_very_deep_structures /MIR

Here's the Robocopy reference to know the parameters and various options.

I've created a PowerShell function that is able to delete a long path (>260) using the mentioned robocopy technique:

function Remove-PathToLongDirectory 
{
    Param(
        [string]$directory
    )
    
    # create a temporary (empty) directory
    $parent = [System.IO.Path]::GetTempPath()
    [string] $name = [System.Guid]::NewGuid()
    $tempDirectory = New-Item -ItemType Directory -Path (Join-Path $parent $name)

    robocopy /MIR $tempDirectory.FullName $directory | out-null
    Remove-Item $directory -Force | out-null
    Remove-Item $tempDirectory -Force | out-null
}

Usage example:

Remove-PathToLongDirectory c:\yourlongPath

This answer on SuperUser solved it for me: https://superuser.com/a/274224/85532

Cmd /C "rmdir /S /Q $myDir"

I learnt a trick a while ago that often works to get around long file path issues. Apparently when using some Windows API's certain functions will flow through legacy code that can't handle long file names. However if you format your paths in a particular way, the legacy code is avoided. The trick that solves this problem is to reference paths using the "\\?" prefix. It should be noted that not all API's support this but in this particular case it worked for me, see my example below:

The following example fails:

PS D:\> get-childitem -path "D:\System Volume Information\dfsr" -hidden


Directory: D:\System Volume Information\dfsr


Mode                LastWriteTime     Length Name
----                -------------     ------ ----
-a-hs        10/09/2014  11:10 PM     834424 FileIDTable_2
-a-hs        10/09/2014   8:43 PM    3211264 SimilarityTable_2

PS D:\> Remove-Item -Path "D:\System Volume Information\dfsr" -recurse -force
Remove-Item : The specified path, file name, or both are too long. The fully qualified file name must be less than 260
characters, and the directory name must be less than 248 characters.
At line:1 char:1
+ Remove-Item -Path "D:\System Volume Information\dfsr" -recurse -force
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+ CategoryInfo          : WriteError: (D:\System Volume Information\dfsr:String) [Remove-Item], PathTooLongExcepti
on
+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : RemoveItemIOError,Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.RemoveItemCommand

PS D:\>

However, prefixing the path with "\\?" makes the command work successfully:

PS D:\> Remove-Item -Path "\\?\D:\System Volume Information\dfsr" -recurse -force
PS D:\> get-childitem -path "D:\System Volume Information\dfsr" -hidden
PS D:\>

If you have ruby installed, you can use Fileman:

gem install fileman

Once installed, you can simply run the following in your command prompt:

fm rm your_folder_path

This problem is a real pain in the neck when you're developing in node.js on Windows, so fileman becomes really handy to delete all the garbage once in a while

This is a known limitation of PowerShell. The work around is to use dir cmd (sorry, but this is true).

http://asysadmin.tumblr.com/post/17654309496/powershell-path-length-limitation

or as mentioned by AaronH answer use \?\ syntax is in this example to delete build

dir -Include build -Depth 1 | Remove-Item -Recurse -Path "\\?\$($_.FullName)"

If all you're doing is deleting the files, I use a function to shorten the names, then I delete.

    function ConvertTo-ShortNames{
    param ([string]$folder)
    $name = 1
    $items = Get-ChildItem -path $folder
    foreach ($item in $items){
        Rename-Item -Path $item.FullName -NewName "$name"
        if ($item.PSIsContainer){
            $parts = $item.FullName.Split("\")
            $folderPath = $parts[0]
            for ($i = 1; $i -lt $parts.Count - 1; $i++){
                $folderPath = $folderPath + "\" + $parts[$i]
            }
            $folderPath = $folderPath + "\$name"
            ConvertTo-ShortNames $folderPath
        }
        $name++
    }
}

I know this is an old question, but I thought I would put this here in case somebody needed it.

There is one workaround that uses Experimental.IO from Base Class Libraries project. You can find it over on poshcode, or download from author's blog. 260 limitation is derived from .NET, so it's either this, or using tools that do not depend on .NET (like cmd /c dir, as @Bill suggested).

Combination of tools can work best, try doing a dir /x to get the 8.3 file name instead. You could then parse out that output to a text file then build a powershell script to delete the paths that you out-file'd. Take you all of a minute. Alternatively you could just rename the 8.3 file name to something shorter then delete.

For my Robocopy worked in 1, 2 and 3

1. First create an empty directory lets say c:\emptydir
2. ROBOCOPY c:\emptydir c:\directorytodelete /purge
3. rmdir c:\directorytodelete

This is getting old but I recently had to work around it again. I ended up using 'subst' as it didn't require any other modules or functions be available on the PC this was running from. A little more portable.

Basically find a spare drive letter, 'subst' the long path to that letter, then use that as the base for GCI.

Only limitation is that the $_.fullname and other properties will report the drive letter as the root path.

Seems to work ok:

$location = \\path\to\long\
$driveLetter = ls function:[d-z]: -n | ?{ !(test-path $_) } | random

subst $driveLetter $location
sleep 1
Push-Location $driveLetter -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
Get-ChildItem -Recurse

subst $driveLetter /D

That command is obviously not to delete files but can be substituted.

PowerShell can easily be used with AlphaFS.dll to do actual file I/O stuff without the PATH TOO LONG hassle.

For example:

Import-Module <path-to-AlphaFS.dll>

[Alphaleonis.Win32.Filesystem.Directory]::Delete($path, $True)

Please see at Codeplex: https://alphafs.codeplex.com/ for this .NET project.

I had the same issue while trying to delete folders on a remote machine.

Nothing helped but... I found one trick :

# 1:let's create an empty folder
md ".\Empty" -erroraction silentlycontinue

# 2: let's MIR to the folder to delete : this will empty the folder completely.
robocopy ".\Empty" $foldertodelete /MIR /LOG+:$logname 

# 3: let's delete the empty folder now:
remove-item $foldertodelete -force

# 4: we can delete now the empty folder
remove-item ".\Empty" -force

Works like a charm on local or remote folders (using UNC path)

Adding to Daniel Lee's solution, When the $myDir has spaces in the middle it gives FILE NOT FOUND errors considering set of files splitted from space. To overcome this use quotations around the variable and put powershell escape character to skip the quatations.

PS>cmd.exe /C "rmdir /s /q <grave-accent>"$myDir<grave-accent>""

Please substitute the proper grave-accent character instead of <grave-accent>
SO plays with me and I can't add it :). Hope some one will update it for others to understand easily

Just for completeness, I have come across this a few more times and have used a combination of both 'subst' and 'New-PSDrive' to work around it in various situations.

Not exactly a solution, but if anyone is looking for alternatives this might help.

Subst seems very sensitive to which type of program you are using to access the files, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't, seems to be the same with New-PSDrive.

Any thing developed using .NET out of the box will fail with paths too long. You will have to move them to 8.3 names, PInVoke (Win32) calls, or use robocopy