How to delete files/subfolders in a specific directory at the command prompt in Windows

Say, there is a variable called `%pathtofolder%`, as it makes it clear it is a full path of a folder.

I want to delete every single file and subfolder in this directory, but not the directory itself.

But, there might be an error like 'this file/folder is already in use'... when that happens, it should just continue and skip that file/folder.

Is there some command for this?

The simplest solution I can think of is removing the whole directory with

RD /S /Q folderPath

Then creating this directory again:

MD folderPath

This will remove the folders and files and leave the folder behind.


pushd "%pathtofolder%" && (rd /s /q "%pathtofolder%" 2>nul & popd)

RD stands for REMOVE Directory.


/S : Delete all files and subfolders
in addition to the folder itself.
Use this to remove an entire folder tree.

/Q : Quiet - do not display YN confirmation

Example :

RD /S /Q C:/folder_path/here

To delete file:

del PATH_TO_FILE

To delete folder with all files in it:

rmdir /s /q PATH_TO_FOLDER

To delete all files from specific folder (not deleting folder itself) is a little bit complicated. `del /s *.*` cannot delete folders, but removes files from all subfolder. So two commands are needed:

del /q PATH_TO_FOLDER\*.*
for /d %i in (PATH_TO_FOLDER\*.*) do @rmdir /s /q "%i"

You can use this shell script to clean up the folder and files within `C:\Temp` [source][1]:

del /q "C:\Temp\*"
FOR /D %%p IN ("C:\Temp\*.*") DO rmdir "%%p" /s /q

Create a batch file (say, delete.bat) containing the above command. Go to the location where the delete.bat file is located and then run the command: delete.bat


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I use Powershell

Remove-Item c:\scripts\* -recurse

It will remove the contents of the folder, not the folder itself.

[`rmdir`](

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) is my all time favorite command for the job. It works for deleting huge files and folders with subfolders. A backup is not created, so make sure that you have copied your files safely before running this command.


RMDIR "FOLDERNAME" /S /Q

This silently removes the folder and all files and subfolders.

@ECHO OFF
rem next line removes all files in temp folder
DEL /A /F /Q /S "%temp%\*.*"
rem next line cleans up the folder's content
FOR /D %%p IN ("%temp%\*.*") DO RD "%%p" /S /Q

CD [Your_Folder]
RMDIR /S /Q .

You'll get an error message, tells you that the RMDIR command can't access the current folder, thus it can't delete it.

**Update**:

From [this][1] useful comment (thanks to [Moritz Both][2]), you may add `&&` between, so `RMDIR` won't run if the `CD` command fails (e.g. mistyped directory name):


CD [Your_Folder] && RMDIR /S /Q .

From [Windows Command-Line Reference][3]:

> **/S:** Deletes a directory tree (the specified directory and all its
> subdirectories, including all files).
>
> **/Q:** Specifies quiet mode. Does not prompt for confirmation when
> deleting a directory tree. (Note that /q works only if /s is
> specified.)


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