How to recursively remove all empty folders in PowerShell?

I need to recursively remove all empty folders for a specific folder in PowerShell (checking folder and sub-folder at any level).

At the moment I am using this script with no success.

Could you please tell me how to fix it?

$tdc='C:\a\c\d\'
$a = Get-ChildItem $tdc -recurse | Where-Object {$_.PSIsContainer -eq $True}
$a | Where-Object {$_.GetFiles().Count -eq 0} | Select-Object FullName

I am using PowerShell on Windows 8.1 version.

You need to keep a few key things in mind when looking at a problem like this:

1. Get-ChildItem -Recurse performs head recursion, meaning it returns folders as soon as it finds them when walking through a tree. Since you want to remove empty folders, and also remove their parent if they are empty after you remove the empty folders, you need to use tail recursion instead, which processes the folders from the deepest child up to the root. By using tail recursion, there will be no need for repeated calls to the code that removes the empty folders -- one call will do it all for you.
2. Get-ChildItem does not return hidden files or folders by default. As a result you need to take extra steps to ensure that you don't remove folders that appear empty but that contain hidden files or folders. Get-Item and Get-ChildItem both have a -Force parameter which can be used to retrieve hidden files or folders as well as visible files or folders.

With those points in mind, here is a solution that uses tail recursion and that properly tracks hidden files or folders, making sure to remove hidden folders if they are empty and also making sure to keep folders that may contain one or more hidden files.

First this is the script block (anonymous function) that does the job:

# A script block (anonymous function) that will remove empty folders
# under a root folder, using tail-recursion to ensure that it only
# walks the folder tree once. -Force is used to be able to process
# hidden files/folders as well.
$tailRecursion = {
    param(
        $Path
    )
    foreach ($childDirectory in Get-ChildItem -Force -LiteralPath $Path -Directory) {
        & $tailRecursion -Path $childDirectory.FullName
    }
    $currentChildren = Get-ChildItem -Force -LiteralPath $Path
    $isEmpty = $currentChildren -eq $null
    if ($isEmpty) {
        Write-Verbose "Removing empty folder at path '${Path}'." -Verbose
        Remove-Item -Force -LiteralPath $Path
    }
}

If you want to test it here's code that will create interesting test data (make sure you don't already have a folder c:\a because it will be deleted):

# This creates some test data under C:\a (make sure this is not
# a directory you care about, because this will remove it if it
# exists). This test data contains a directory that is hidden
# that should be removed as well as a file that is hidden in a
# directory that should not be removed.
Remove-Item -Force -Path C:\a -Recurse
New-Item -Force -Path C:\a\b\c\d -ItemType Directory > $null
$hiddenFolder = Get-Item -Force -LiteralPath C:\a\b\c
$hiddenFolder.Attributes = $hiddenFolder.Attributes -bor [System.IO.FileAttributes]::Hidden
New-Item -Force -Path C:\a\b\e -ItemType Directory > $null
New-Item -Force -Path C:\a\f -ItemType Directory > $null
New-Item -Force -Path C:\a\f\g -ItemType Directory > $null
New-Item -Force -Path C:\a\f\h -ItemType Directory > $null
Out-File -Force -FilePath C:\a\f\test.txt -InputObject 'Dummy file'
Out-File -Force -FilePath C:\a\f\h\hidden.txt -InputObject 'Hidden file'
$hiddenFile = Get-Item -Force -LiteralPath C:\a\f\h\hidden.txt
$hiddenFile.Attributes = $hiddenFile.Attributes -bor [System.IO.FileAttributes]::Hidden

Here's how you use it. Note that this will remove the top folder (the C:\a folder in this example, which gets created if you generated the test data using the script above) if that folder winds up being empty after deleting all empty folders under it.

& $tailRecursion -Path 'C:\a'

You can use this:

$tdc="C:\a\c\d"
$dirs = gci $tdc -directory -recurse | Where { (gci $_.fullName).count -eq 0 } | select -expandproperty FullName
$dirs | Foreach-Object { Remove-Item $_ }

$dirs will be an array of empty directories returned from the Get-ChildItem command after filtering. You can then loop over it to remove the items.

Update

If you want to remove directories that contain empty directories, you just need to keep running the script until they're all gone. You can loop until $dirs is empty:

$tdc="C:\a\c\d"
do {
  $dirs = gci $tdc -directory -recurse | Where { (gci $_.fullName).count -eq 0 } | select -expandproperty FullName
  $dirs | Foreach-Object { Remove-Item $_ }
} while ($dirs.count -gt 0)

If you want to ensure that hidden files and folders will also be removed, include the -Force flag:

do {
  $dirs = gci $tdc -directory -recurse | Where { (gci $_.fullName -Force).count -eq 0 } | select -expandproperty FullName
  $dirs | Foreach-Object { Remove-Item $_ }
} while ($dirs.count -gt 0)

Get-ChildItem $tdc -Recurse -Force -Directory | 
    Sort-Object -Property FullName -Descending |
    Where-Object { $($_ | Get-ChildItem -Force | Select-Object -First 1).Count -eq 0 } |
    Remove-Item -Verbose

The only novel contribution here is using Sort-Object to reverse sort by the directory's FullName. This will ensure that we always process children before we process parents (i.e., "tail recursion" as described by Kirk Munro's answer). That makes it recursively remove empty folders.

Off hand, I'm not sure if the Select-Object -First 1 will meaningfully improve performance or not, but it may.

ls c:\temp -rec |%{ if ($_.PSIsContainer -eq $True) {if ( (ls $_.fullname -rec | measure |select -expand count ) -eq "0"  ){ ri $_.fullname -whatif}  }  }  

Just figured I would contribute to the already long list of answers here.

Many of the answers have quirks to them, like needing to run more than once. Others are overly complex for the average user (like using tail recursion to prevent duplicate scans, etc).

Here is a very simple one-liner that I've been using for years, and works great...

It does not account for hidden files/folders, but you can fix that by adding -Force to the Get-ChildItem command

This is the long, fully qualified cmdlet name version:

Get-ChildItem -Recurse -Directory | ? { -Not ($_.EnumerateFiles('*',1) | Select-Object -First 1) } | Remove-Item -Recurse

So basically...here's how it goes:

• Get-ChildItem -Recurse -Directory - Start scanning recursively looking for directories
• $_.EnumerateFiles('*',1) - For each directory...Enumerate the files
  • EnumerateFiles will output its findings as it goes, GetFiles will output when it is done....at least, that's how it is supposed to work in .NET...for some reason in PowerShell GetFiles starts spitting out immediately. But I still use EnumerateFiles because in testing it was reliably faster.
  • ('*',1) means find ALL files recursively.
• | Select-Object -First 1 - Stop at the first file found
  • This was difficult to test how much it helped. In some cases it helped tremendously, other times it didn't help at all, and in some cases it slowed it down by a small amount. So I really don't know. I guess this is optional.
• | Remove-Item -Recurse - Remove the directory, recursively (ensures directories that contain empty sub directories gets removed)

If you're counting characters, this could be shortened to:

ls -s -ad | ? { -Not ($_.EnumerateFiles('*',1) | select -First 1) } | rm -Recurse

• -s - alias for -Recurse
• -ad - alias for -Directory

If you really don't care about performance because you don't have that many files....even more so to:

ls -s -ad | ? {!($_.GetFiles('*',1))} | rm -Recurse

---

Side note: While playing around with this, I started testing various versions with Measure-Command against a server with millions of files and thousands of directories.

This is faster than the command I've been using (above):

(gi .).EnumerateDirectories('*',1) | ? {-Not $_.EnumerateFiles('*',1) } | rm -Recurse

Assuming you're inside the parent folder of interest

gci . -Recurse -Directory | % { if(!(gci -Path $_.FullName)) {ri -Force -Recurse $_.FullName} }

For your case with $tdc it'll be

gci $tdc -Recurse -Directory | % { if(!(gci -Path $_.FullName)) {ri -Force -Recurse $_.FullName} }

If you just want to make sure, that you delete only folders that may contain subfolders but no files within itself and its subfolders, this may be an easier an quicker way.

$Empty = Get-ChildItem $Folder -Directory -Recurse |
Where-Object {(Get-ChildItem $_.FullName -File -Recurse -Force).Count -eq 0}

Foreach ($Dir in $Empty)
{
    if (test-path $Dir.FullName)
    {Remove-Item -LiteralPath $Dir.FullName -recurse -force}
}

Recursively removing empty subdirectories can also be accomplished using a "For Loop".

Before we start, let's make some subdirectories & text files to work with in $HOME\Desktop\Test

MD $HOME\Desktop\Test\0\1\2\3\4\5 
MD $HOME\Desktop\Test\A\B\C\D\E\F
MD $HOME\Desktop\Test\A\B\C\DD\EE\FF
MD $HOME\Desktop\Test\Q\W\E\R\T\Y
MD $HOME\Desktop\Test\Q\W\E\RR
"Hello World" > $HOME\Desktop\Test\0\1\Text1.txt
"Hello World" > $HOME\Desktop\Test\A\B\C\D\E\Text2.txt
"Hello World" > $HOME\Desktop\Test\A\B\C\DD\Text3.txt
"Hello World" > $HOME\Desktop\Test\Q\W\E\RR\Text4.txt

First, store the following Script Block in the variable $SB. The variable can be called later using the &SB command. The &SB command will output a list of empty subdirectories contained in $HOME\Desktop\Test

$SB = {
    Get-ChildItem $HOME\Desktop\Test -Directory -Recurse |
    Where-Object {(Get-ChildItem $_.FullName -Force).Count -eq 0}
}

NOTE: The -Force parameter is very important. It makes sure that directories which contain hidden files and subdirectories, but are otherwise empty, are not deleted in the "For Loop".

Now use a "For Loop" to recursively remove empty subdirectories in $HOME\Desktop\Test

For ($Empty = &$SB ; $Empty -ne $null ; $Empty = &$SB) {Remove-Item (&$SB).FullName}

Tested as working on PowerShell 4.0

I have adapted the script of RichardHowells. It doesn't delete the folder if there is a thumbs.db.

##############
# Parameters #
##############
param(
    $Chemin = "" ,  # Path to clean
    $log = ""       # Logs path
)




###########
# Process #
###########


if (($Chemin -eq "") -or ($log-eq "") ){
    
    Write-Error 'Parametres non reseignes - utiliser la syntaxe : -Chemin "Argument"  -log "argument 2" ' -Verbose 
    Exit
}



#loging 
$date = get-date -format g
Write-Output "begining of cleaning folder : $chemin at $date" >> $log
Write-Output "------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------" >> $log


<########################################################################
    define a script block that will remove empty folders under a root folder, 
    using tail-recursion to ensure that it only walks the folder tree once. 
    -Force is used to be able to process hidden files/folders as well.
########################################################################>
$tailRecursion = {
    param(
        $Path
    )
    foreach ($childDirectory in Get-ChildItem -Force -LiteralPath $Path -Directory) {
        & $tailRecursion -Path $childDirectory.FullName
    }
    $currentChildren = Get-ChildItem -Force -LiteralPath $Path
    Write-Output $childDirectory.FullName



    <# Suppression des fichiers Thumbs.db #>
    Foreach ( $file in $currentchildren )
    {
        if ($file.name -notmatch "Thumbs.db"){break}
        if ($file.name -match "Thumbs.db"){
            Remove-item -force -LiteralPath $file.FullName}
        
    }
    
    

    $currentChildren = Get-ChildItem -Force -LiteralPath $Path
    $isEmpty = $currentChildren -eq $null
    if ($isEmpty) {
        $date = get-date -format g
        Write-Output "Removing empty folder at path '${Path}'.  $date" >> $log
        Remove-Item -Force -LiteralPath $Path
    }
}

# Invocation of the script block
& $tailRecursion -Path $Chemin

#loging 
$date = get-date -format g
Write-Output "End of cleaning folder : $chemin at $date" >> $log
Write-Output "------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------" >> $log

I wouldn't take the comments/1st post to heart unless you also want to delete files that are nested more than one folder deep. You are going to end up deleting directories that may contain directories that may contain files. This is better:

$FP= "C:\Temp\"

$dirs= Get-Childitem -LiteralPath $FP -directory -recurse

$Empty= $dirs | Where-Object {$_.GetFiles().Count -eq 0 **-and** $_.GetDirectories().Count -eq 0} | 

Select-Object FullName

The above checks to make sure the directory is in fact empty whereas the OP only checks to make sure there are no files. That in turn would result in files nexted a few folders deep also being deleted.

You may need to run the above a few times as it won't delete Dirs that have nested Dirs. So it only deletes the deepest level. So loop it until they're all gone.

Something else I do not do is use the -force parameter. That is by design. If in fact remove-item hits a dir that is not empty you want to be prompted as an additional safety.

Something like this works for me. The script delete empty folders and folders containing only folder (no files, no hidden files).

$items = gci -LiteralPath E:\ -Directory -Recurse
$dirs = [System.Collections.Generic.HashSet[string]]::new([string[]]($items |% FullName))
for (;;) {
    $remove = $dirs |? { (gci -LiteralPath $_ -Force).Count -eq 0 }
    if ($remove) {
        $remove | rm
        $dirs.ExceptWith( [string[]]$remove )
    }
    else {
        break
    }
}

$files = Get-ChildItem -Path c:\temp -Recurse -Force | where psiscontainer ; [array]::reverse($files)

[Array]::reverse($files) will reverse your items, so you get the lowest files in hierarchy first. I use this to manipulate filenames that have too long filepaths, before I delete them.

This is a simple approach

dir -Directory | ? { (dir $_).Count -eq 0 } | Remove-Item

This will remove up all empty folders in the specified directory $tdc. It is also a lot faster since there's no need for multiple runs.

    $tdc = "x:\myfolder" # Specify the root folder
    gci $tdc -Directory -Recurse `
        | Sort-Object { $_.FullName.Length } -Descending `
        | ? { $_.GetFiles().Count -eq 0 } `
        | % {
            if ($_.GetDirectories().Count -eq 0) { 
                Write-Host " Removing $($_.FullName)"
                $_.Delete()
                }
            }

#By Mike Mike Costa Rica
$CarpetasVacias = Get-ChildItem -Path $CarpetaVer -Recurse -Force -Directory | Where {(gci $_.fullName).count -eq 0} | select Fullname,Name,LastWriteTime
$TotalCarpetas = $CarpetasVacias.Count
$CountSu = 1
ForEach ($UnaCarpeta in $CarpetasVacias){
    $RutaCarp = $UnaCarpeta.Fullname
    Remove-Item -Path $RutaCarp -Force -Confirm:$False -ErrorAction Ignore
    $testCar = Test-Path $RutaCarp
    if($testCar -eq $true){ 
        $Datem = (Get-Date).tostring("MM-dd-yyyy HH:mm:ss")
        Write-Host "$Datem ---> $CountSu de $TotalCarpetas Carpetas Error Borrando Directory: $RutaCarp" -foregroundcolor "red"
    }else{
        $Datem = (Get-Date).tostring("MM-dd-yyyy HH:mm:ss")
        Write-Host "$Datem ---> $CountSu de $TotalCarpetas Carpetas Correcto Borrando Directory: $RutaCarp" -foregroundcolor "gree"
    }
    $CountSu += 1
}