How to delete empty subfolders with PowerShell?

Question

I have a share that is a "junk drawer" for end-users. They are able to create folders and subfolders as they see fit. I need to implement a script to delete files created more than 31 days old.

I have that started with Powershell. I need to follow up the file deletion script by deleting subfolders that are now empty. Because of the nesting of subfolders, I need to avoid deleting a subfolder that is empty of files, but has a subfolder below it that contains a file.

For example:

• FILE3a is 10 days old. FILE3 is 45 days old.
• I want to clean up the structure removing files older than 30 days, and delete empty subfolders.

C:\Junk\subfolder1a\subfolder2a\FILE3a

C:\Junk\subfolder1a\subfolder2a\subfolder3a

C:\Junk\subfolder1a\subfolder2B\FILE3b

Desired result:

• Delete: FILE3b, subfolder2B & subfolder3a.
• Leave: subfolder1a, subfolder2a, and FILE3a.

I can recursively clean up the files. How do I clean up the subfolders without deleting subfolder1a? (The "Junk" folder will always remain.)

Answer 1

I would do this in two passes - deleting the old files first and then the empty dirs:

Get-ChildItem -recurse | Where {!$_.PSIsContainer -and `
$_.LastWriteTime -lt (get-date).AddDays(-31)} | Remove-Item -whatif

Get-ChildItem -recurse | Where {$_.PSIsContainer -and `
@(Get-ChildItem -Lit $_.Fullname -r | Where {!$_.PSIsContainer}).Length -eq 0} |
Remove-Item -recurse -whatif

This type of operation demos the power of nested pipelines in PowerShell which the second set of commands demonstrates. It uses a nested pipeline to recursively determine if any directory has zero files under it.

Answer 2

In the spirit of the first answer, here is the shortest way to delete the empty directories:

ls -recurse | where {!@(ls -force $_.fullname)} | rm -whatif

The -force flag is needed for the cases when the directories have hidden folders, like .svn

Answer 3

This will sort subdirectories before parent directories working around the empty nested directory problem.

dir -Directory -Recurse |
    %{ $_.FullName} |
    sort -Descending |
    where { !@(ls -force $_) } |
    rm -WhatIf

Answer 4

Adding on to the last one:

while (Get-ChildItem $StartingPoint -recurse | where {!@(Get-ChildItem -force $_.fullname)} | Test-Path) {
    Get-ChildItem $StartingPoint -recurse | where {!@(Get-ChildItem -force $_.fullname)} | Remove-Item
}

This will make it complete where it will continue searching to remove any empty folders under the $StartingPoint

Answer 5

I needed some enterprise-friendly features. Here is my take.

I started with code from other answers, then added a JSON file with original folder list (including file count per folder). Removed the empty directories and log those.

https://gist.github.com/yzorg/e92c5eb60e97b1d6381b

param (
    [switch]$Clear
)

# if you want to reload a previous file list
#$stat = ConvertFrom-Json (gc dir-cleanup-filecount-by-directory.json -join "`n")

if ($Clear) { 
    $stat = @() 
} elseif ($stat.Count -ne 0 -and (-not "$($stat[0].DirPath)".StartsWith($PWD.ProviderPath))) {
    Write-Warning "Path changed, clearing cached file list."
    Read-Host -Prompt 'Press -Enter-'
    $stat = @() 
}

$lineCount = 0
if ($stat.Count -eq 0) {
    $stat = gci -Recurse -Directory | %{  # -Exclude 'Visual Studio 2013' # test in 'Documents' folder

        if (++$lineCount % 100 -eq 0) { Write-Warning "file count $lineCount" }

        New-Object psobject -Property @{ 
            DirPath=$_.FullName; 
            DirPathLength=$_.FullName.Length;
            FileCount=($_ | gci -Force -File).Count; 
            DirCount=($_ | gci -Force -Directory).Count
        }
    }
    $stat | ConvertTo-Json | Out-File dir-cleanup-filecount-by-directory.json -Verbose
}

$delelteListTxt = 'dir-cleanup-emptydirs-{0}-{1}.txt' -f ((date -f s) -replace '[-:]','' -replace 'T','_'),$env:USERNAME

$stat | 
    ? FileCount -eq 0 | 
    sort -property @{Expression="DirPathLength";Descending=$true}, @{Expression="DirPath";Descending=$false} |
    select -ExpandProperty DirPath | #-First 10 | 
    ?{ @(gci $_ -Force).Count -eq 0 } | %{
        Remove-Item $_ -Verbose # -WhatIf  # uncomment to see the first pass of folders to be cleaned**
        $_ | Out-File -Append -Encoding utf8 $delelteListTxt
        sleep 0.1
    }

# ** - The list you'll see from -WhatIf isn't a complete list because parent folders
#      might also qualify after the first level is cleaned.  The -WhatIf list will 
#      show correct breath, which is what I want to see before running the command.

Answer 6

To remove files older than 30 days:

get-childitem -recurse |
    ? {$_.GetType() -match "FileInfo"} |
    ?{ $_.LastWriteTime -lt [datetime]::now.adddays(-30) }  |
    rm -whatif

(Just remove the -whatif to actually perform.)

Follow up with:

 get-childitem -recurse |
     ? {$_.GetType() -match "DirectoryInfo"} |
     ?{ $_.GetFiles().Count -eq 0 -and $_.GetDirectories().Count -eq 0 } |
     rm -whatif

Answer 7

This worked for me.

$limit = (Get-Date).AddDays(-15) 

$path = "C:\Some\Path"

Delete files older than the $limit:

Get-ChildItem -Path $path -Recurse -Force | Where-Object { !$_.PSIsContainer -and $_.CreationTime -lt $limit } | Remove-Item -Force

Delete any empty directories left behind after deleting the old files:

Get-ChildItem -Path $path -Recurse -Force | Where-Object { $_.PSIsContainer -and (Get-ChildItem -Path $_.FullName -Recurse -Force | Where-Object { !$_.PSIsContainer }) -eq $null } | Remove-Item -Force -Recurse