How to delete empty subfolders with PowerShell?

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.

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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.)

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.

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

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

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.



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.

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

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

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