How can I write a batch file that will delete all the files who exist in another directory?

Question

I want to write a batch file that will remove the file overlap between two folders.

In other words, I want it to say "Remove from folder A all files which also appear in folder B".

From a SQL point of view, it would be something like

DELETE FROM FOLDERA WHERE EXISTS(SELECT FILE FROM FOLDERB)

but I want to accomplish that in the windows filesystem.

JosephStyons · Accepted Answer · 2011-09-20 19:40:32Z

2

Answering my own question:

set if_it_exists_here=C:\folderB set then_delete_it_there=C:\folderA cd "%if_it_exists_here%" FOR /F "tokens=*" %%G IN ('dir *.* /b /a:-d') DO del "%then_delete_it_there%\%%G"

answered Sep 20, 2011 at 19:40

JosephStyons

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2 Comments

Anthony Miller Over a year ago

i suppose its given that the file ALWAYS exists in both folderA and folderB?

JosephStyons Over a year ago

No, not necessarily. If there is no overlap, then the script will not delete anything.

Anthony Miller · Accepted Answer · 2011-09-20 20:55:15Z

1

SET if_it_exists_here=C:\folderB SET then_delete_it_there=C:\folderA CD "%if_it_exists_here%" FOR %%A IN (*.*) DO ( IF EXIST "%then_delete_it_there%\%%~nxA" DEL /Q /F %then_delete_it_there%\%%~nxA )

answered Sep 20, 2011 at 20:55

Anthony Miller

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3 Comments

JosephStyons Over a year ago

This is an interesting alternative. Is there any special advantage to this approach?

Anthony Miller Over a year ago

This just looks for the file before deleting it as opposed to assuming the file exists and deleting it. So redirecting with 2> should come out clean. I always test with redirecting 2> file > file2 to ensure nothing goes wrong with the code, and having it return "file not found" to STDERR is annoying =/. Just nitpicky.

JosephStyons Over a year ago

Great points, I think I'll use this rather than my own. I suspect it will perform better with large numbers of files, too.

JosephStyons · Accepted Answer · 2011-09-27 13:01:32Z

Building on the answer by Mechaflash, here is a version that works with UNC paths.

SET if_it_exists_here=\\server1\some\folder SET then_delete_it_there=\\server2\some\folder CD "%if_it_exists_here%" FOR %%A IN ("%if_it_exists_here%\*.*") DO ( IF EXIST "%then_delete_it_there%\%%~nxA" DEL /Q /F %then_delete_it_there%\%%~nxA )

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