"rm -rf" equivalent for Windows?

Question

I need a way to recursively delete a folder and its children.

Is there a prebuilt tool for this, or do I need to write one?

DEL /S doesn't delete directories.

DELTREE was removed from Windows 2000+

Solution 1

RMDIR or RD if you are using the classic Command Prompt (cmd.exe):

rd /s /q "path"

RMDIR [/S] [/Q] [drive:]path

RD [/S] [/Q] [drive:]path

/S Removes all directories and files in the specified directory in addition to the directory itself. Used to remove a directory tree.

/Q Quiet mode, do not ask if ok to remove a directory tree with /S

If you are using PowerShell you can use Remove-Item (which is aliased to del, erase, rd, ri, rm and rmdir) and takes a -Recurse argument that can be shorted to -r

rd -r "path"

Solution 2

admin:

takeown /r /f folder
cacls folder /c /G "ADMINNAME":F /T
rmdir /s folder

Works for anything including sys files

EDIT: I actually found the best way which also solves file path too long problem as well:

mkdir \empty
robocopy /mir \empty folder

Solution 3

RMDIR [/S] [/Q] [drive:]path

RD [/S] [/Q] [drive:]path

• /S Removes all directories and files in the specified directory in addition to the directory itself. Used to remove a directory tree.

• /Q Quiet mode, do not ask if ok to remove a directory tree with /S

Solution 4

Go to the path and trigger this command.

rd /s /q "FOLDER_NAME"

/s : Removes the specified directory and all subdirectories including any files. Use /s to remove a tree.

/q : Runs rmdir in quiet mode. Deletes directories without confirmation.

/? : Displays help at the command prompt.

Solution 5

You can install cygwin, which has rm as well as ls etc.

View more solutions

Comments

[Wedge]

It's worth pointing out that for large numbers of files, rmdir /s /q is typically significantly faster than the equivalent "select dir, shift + delete" operation in explorer.

[Tom Mayfield]

How about using flags to match directory names? If I want to drop all directories under foo\, rmdir /s /q foo\* gives an error for syntax incorrect.

[Dirk Groeneveld]

This doesn't delete files, like rm -rf does, and it also returns a non-zero value when the directory doesn't exist, so rd /s /q foo && echo "yay" will fail if directory "foo" doesn't exist.

[alexey]

@Derek, Doskey could help you create aliases for ls=dir: devblog.point2.com/2010/05/14/…

[Eugene]

What if dir. not empty and some files get Access is denied and others The process cannot access the file because it is being used by another process?

[bbqchickenrobot]

worked for me in combination w/ rmdir /s /q as some files were locked and rmdir would fail on those. del / foldername nuked the locked files which then allowed rmdir to get rid of root dir. Nice.

[ford prefect]

I just tried this in seven and you need to do /S and /Q (caps)

[Léon Pelletier]

My hero! And one tip: You create your empty folder at C:\empty, then once inside each crazy folder, one can just do robocopy /mir c:\empty .

[Alex Hall]

Mystified here. I know that I tried this command and it did not work if there were files in the directory tree; now I go back and . . . magically it seems to work. Does anyone else experience inconsistent behavior with this?!

[Brain]

Yes, I experience inconsistent behavior all the time. It says it cannot delete the directory because it is blocked by some process. But there are no processes blocking the directory.

[Jarda]

The takeown helped me as I copied folder from Linux system with rsync by mistake and I had no privileges to remove that folder... Not even the robocopy worked. Thanks

[Thomas]

Thanks for the parameter explanation. Accepted answer does not do this, unfortunately.

[Clay]

Use if exist myfolder ( rmdir /s/q myfolder ) if you don't know whether the folder will exist or not

[Jon Gunter]

This doesn't seem to work in PowerShell? I'm getting "A positional parameter cannot be found that accepts argument '/q'."

[Duncan Smart]

@JonGunter for Powershell you use the Remove-Item cmdlet msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/reference/5.1/…

[Gangnus]

Very nice answer. It works. (all other answers on the page don't). But cacls is deprecated. Is it possible to make a contemporary answer, please? The second variant already works and is not deprecated.

[Gangnus]

Maybe it worked in some older windows. But now it does not work at all.

[Matt Hancock]

help rmdir in windows 7 indicates /S should be used to remove the whole directory tree and /Q should be used for quiet mode.

[Artif3x]

Simplest, perfect answer to the question. Should be the accepted one.

[Denialos]

A solid solution to the problem as it's OS-agnostic.

[Ralf]

This doesn't do anything for me. Could someone please explain how it is supposed to work? (robocopy) - It might delete contents of folders, but not folders themselves

[George Pligoropoulos]

Actually this is the answer. Thanks @Clay

[Bilal]

@wbkang when I run cacls "C:\B" /c /G "ADMINNAME":F /T I get No mapping between account names and security IDs was done.

[wbkang]

@bilal substitute"adminname" with your actual account name.

[Yerrapotu ManojKiran]

@wbkang For me rmdir was not working because few files were having long paths, actually your solution of copying empty folder to folder is a smart solution, thank you

[Nostalg.io]

THANK YOU! This suggestion actually worked in Windows Terminal.

[Ruslan López]

The system cannot find the path specified :C

[Patrick Artner]

rm is just (one of the plenty del, erase, rd, ri, rm, rmdir) aliases for remove-item wich is already mentioned in answers stackoverflow.com/a/63745519/7505395 and stackoverflow.com/a/53859156/7505395 and the accepted answer stackoverflow.com/a/97896/7505395 (which does not explicitly state to use force though - but all the others do)

[David Jones]

It's also worth pointing out the saying rd -r out loud makes you sound like a pirate.

[faester]

Well -Force makes a difference. I found the other answers confusing.

[Ray Hulha]

This is a great start, but the batch file is not needed: cmd.exe /s /c rmdir "%V" is enough