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I am in the process of setting up a shared network drive, that gets emptied periodically.

Its purpose is to provide an easy file sharing option for the users. Since I can't enforce them to always clean up after themselves, I want this drive to get emptied periodically.

I found and tried this using command prompt:

del /q "D:\Transfer$\*"

And then this:

del /q "D:\Transfer$\*" for /D %p IN (D:\Transfer$\*) DO rmdir "%p" /s /q

But these don't delete the folders, only files.

How would the some code look, that deletes all contents (folders and files) of a given folder, without deleting the folder itself?

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  • Are you looking for a Powershell solution? Commented Jun 1, 2023 at 15:13
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    Does this answer your question? How can I delete all files/subfolders in a given folder via the command prompt? Commented Jun 1, 2023 at 22:37
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    Also stackoverflow.com/questions/6836566/… and a lot of similar answers. Please search before asking. Commented Jun 1, 2023 at 22:38
  • @Destroy666 The first question you suggested did not have a solution for my problem, however the second one did have this answer, which does work for for me. Commented Jun 2, 2023 at 8:19
  • Both do if you use them correctly. In SU the top answer isn't fully correct though as comments suggest, but other answers are better. Commented Jun 2, 2023 at 13:13

3 Answers 3

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Since you tagged for PowerShell even though your efforts and attempts were unsuccessful with batch/cmd—this PowerShell solution works as you prefer, and since you are considering "PowerShell" for a potential solution too.

This takes a full explicit source folder path and deletes all files and all subfolders beneath the source folder recursively—it does not delete the source folder itself, just everything within it.

PowerShell

$srcPath = "D:\Transfer$"; Get-ChildItem -Path $srcPath | ForEach-Object -Process { If($_.attributes -eq "Directory"){ Remove-Item -Path $_.FullName -Recurse -Force; }Else{ Remove-Item -Path $_.FullName -Force;}; };

Supporting Resources

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    Thank you for the answer, this works perfectly. User Destroy666 also suggested other questions and I found this answer, which works aswell. Commented Jun 2, 2023 at 8:50
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The PowerShell solution can be simplified even further. The output of Get-ChildItem can be piped directly to Remove-Item. The -Recurse parameter ensures deletion of subdidrectories and any content within, but is simply ignored if the pipeline input is a file path:

### Single quotes ensure "$" is treated as a literal character. $Path = 'D:\Transfer$' Get-ChildItem $Path | Remove-Item -Recurse -Force
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    This is a perfect solution, good to know! Commented Jun 2, 2023 at 20:29
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$RemoveDir="D:\Transfer$" $CurrentDir=(Get-Location).path cd $RemoveDir -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue | Out-Null if ( $CurrentDir -eq $RemoveDir ) { Remove-Item -path $RemoveDir\* -Recurse } 
@echo off cd /d "D:\Transfer$" && ( del /f /a /q .\* for /r /d %%i in (*)do RmDir /q /s "%%~fi" ) 
cd /d "D:\Transfer$" && (del /f /a /q .\* & for /r /d %i in (*)do RmDir /q /s "%~fi")
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  • Thanks for your answer, the powershell script works, the cmd/batch script however does not. Commented Jun 2, 2023 at 8:48

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