There are a lot of ways to remove empty files and folders from your computer. You can use the Windows operating system, or you can use a third-party program. But the best way to do this is to use a program that is specifically designed for this task. If you don’t have a program that can help you remove empty files and folders automatically, you can try using one of the following methods:
- Use the Windows operating system. This is the most common way to do this, because it is easy and it works on most computers.
- Use a third-party program. Some programs are specifically designed to help you remove empty files and folders automatically, and these programs are usually more expensive than those that come with the Windows operating system.
After cleaning out files on your hard drive, you may be left with a bunch of empty folders you want to delete. Rather than finding them manually, wouldn’t it be easier to use a tool that can find them for you and delete them?
We found a free tool, called Delete Empty, that searches a specified path for empty folders and empty files (files of size zero) and deletes them, deepest paths first. For example, in the following structure, Folder2 is currently not empty, but will become so once EmptyFolder1 and EmptyFolder2 are deleted. Delete Empty will delete EmptyFolder1 and EmptyFolder2 and then discover that Folder 2 is now empty and delete it.
Delete Empty (DelEmpty.exe) is a command line tool, but it’s very quick and easy to use. To use it, open a command line window. The easiest way to do this is to shift-right-click on the folder containing the DelEmpty.exe file and select Open command window here from the popup menu.
c:\Folder1\Folder2\EmptyFolder2
A command line window opens directly to the folder containing the Delete Empty executable.
The format for the Delete Empty command is as follows:
The following OPTIONS are available for use in the command:
For example, to delete empty directories and empty sub-directories in the mydata directory on C:, type the following command on the command line and press Enter.
If you want Delete Empty to prompt you before deleting each empty directory and empty sub-directory, add the -y option to the command, as follows.
To delete all the empty files, in addition to the empty directories and empty sub-directories, add the -f option to the command.
If you want to check what directories and files would be deleted before actually deleting them, use the -l (lowercase L) option. For example, the following command will show you what directories, sub-directories and files will be deleted in the mydata directory.
You can also choose to have Delete Empty show you what has been deleted. To do this, add the -c option to the command.
To close the command window, type “exit” (without the quotes) on the command line and press Enter.
Download Delete Empty from http://www.intelliadmin.com/index.php/downloads/. The program is available in the Free Utilities section.
This handy free tool should help you keep your hard drive free of extraneous directories and files. However, be careful when using the Delete Empty tool. Some programs may need empty folders to run correctly, so be sure not to delete anything you are not sure of.
