Delete Files/Subfolder but keep parent

SilverTongue · 24 Sep 2022 at 16:08

Hey guys,

Looking for a way to delete all subfolder and files but keep the parent directory within cmd or if push comes to shove powershell (would prefer cmd so I can make a bat file)

i.e.
C:\Parent\Sub1\*.*
C:\Parent\Sub1\*.*
C:\Parent\Sub2\*.*
C:\Parent\Sub2\Sub3\*.*

Basically I want to keep C:\Parent but delete all of its contents, closest I can find would be RMDIR /S but that would delete C:\Parent as well or using cd C:\Parent which seems like a long winded way to do it, especially if I then want to add C:\Parent2 etc to it

bazzabear · 24 Sep 2022 at 16:24

If you use DEL C:\parent\*.* doesn't that only delete everything within parent but not parent itself?

Ah - doesn't delete the subfolder as standard, I thought I'd remembered that it did.

Deleted member 77746 · 24 Sep 2022 at 16:26

I've added a new post below with powershell and cmd versions. Had to test to make sure it worked.

bazzabear · 24 Sep 2022 at 16:28

Yeah, I was just about to suggest the /s parameter. Except in my quick check that deleted all files from subfolders too - but still didn't delete the subfolder structure.

bazzabear · 24 Sep 2022 at 16:29

I'm not remembering this stuff from using cmd. I'm remembering it from using DOS! So it's a bit hazy to say the least!

Deleted member 77746 · 24 Sep 2022 at 16:36

Powershell
powershell -Command "Remove-Item 'c:\test\*' -Recurse -Force"

Command Prompt
cd c:\test
rd /S /Q . 2>nul

SilverTongue · 26 Sep 2022 at 10:07

Bouton Aide said:
Powershell
powershell -Command "Remove-Item 'c:\test\*' -Recurse -Force"

Command Prompt
cd c:\test
rd /S /Q . 2>nul

Perfect, thanks, the powershell one does exactly what I need, as does the CMD one but with the extra step I wanted to avoid

bazzabear · 26 Sep 2022 at 11:09

So, you can tell us now.

This is for the "emergency porn folder purge" batch file, right?

Deleted member 77746 · 26 Sep 2022 at 18:18

SilverTongue said:
Perfect, thanks, the powershell one does exactly what I need, as does the CMD one but with the extra step I wanted to avoid

There's no isses with that extra step if it's in a batch file, should still work perfectly.

MatteRB26 · 27 Sep 2022 at 07:22

bazzabear said:
So, you can tell us now.

This is for the "emergency porn folder purge" batch file, right?

Hence the folder names being "Sub"

hornetstinger · 29 Sep 2022 at 01:04

Go into directory

Del *.* /S

That's from MS-DOS day