One of our readers recently asked a question with regards to deleting files and folders recursively using the command prompt.

I would like to delete all the folders and files in a folder. Like we have an option to delete all the files is "del *" but it will not work for deleting folders like "rmdir *"

The question is similar to a one asked to us earlier where a user wanted to know how to recursively delete certain file types from directories and sub directories using the command prompt.

However when it comes to deleting directories and subdirectories using the command prompt, the regular rmdirdoes not work with a wildcard.

In order to delete all files and folders recursively using the command prompt you will need to run the command;

rmdir /S directoryname

Replace directorynamewith the directory you want to delete.

Once you run the command you will be prompted whether you want to delete the files or not, if you do not want to see this prompt you can pass the /Q switch to the command, which will then run the command in non-verbose mode.

However you must note that files and folders deleted from the command prompt do not go to recycle bin, they are permanently deleted, so make sure that you really want to delete those files, however if you do delete those files accidentally you can use one of the free software  to recover deleted files.

Every software these days focus on having tabs to help you easily manage multiple files or browsing session in a single instance, the tab functionality though it restricted to browsers, PDF file viewers, text editors etc.

For applications such as command prompt and cygwin, there are very less alternatives for tabbed interface, being a programmer I prefer using tabs since it eases managing multiple sessions / windows and adds to my productivity while dealing with CLI interfaces.

Related: Tabbed Interface for Putty

I have been using a nifty open source application called console for running command prompt and cygwin as tabs as opposed to single windows. It definitely helps save a lot of time if you are developer and rely more on using command prompts and cygwin bash prompts.

Console runs as a standalone application and does not require any installation, it is distributed under the GNU license and free to use for everyone.

Download Console

One of our readers asked us a real interesting question, which we really loved to solve. The question was tricky but the solution was real simple.

The question asked to us was;

Do you know if there’s a way to delete files of a particular filetype from a set of folders quickly in Windows?

For example, I’ve got a folder by the name “ABC” and I’ve got some pictures and music files there, and I need a tool that automatically deletes all those pictures (i.e., files of a particular format like JPEG) quickly from the ABC folder and its sub-folders.

The task of deleting files recursively from folders and sub-folders does not require any tools and can be easily done using the Windows command prompt. For this post we will assume that the directory, you want to delete the files from is D:ABCand it contains several sub-folders from which you want to delete the files.

Note: Before using the command, we want to warn you that the files will be completely deleted bypassing the recycle bin. If you are looking for a safer way to delete files, we can point you to a earlier post where we introduced the recycle command, using which you can safely delete files to the recycle bin using the command prompt, you can also use wildcards to recycle the files.

How to Delete files recursively in folders and sub-folders using the command prompt?

To delete the files, first open a command prompt window and navigate to the folder you want to delete the files from. To do that use the Windows + R hotkey to open the run window, type in cmdwithout the quotes and hit enter.

Once the command prompt has opened navigate to the folder you want to recursively delete the files from. Once you are in the folder, issue the following command:

del /S test.txt

This command will delete all the files named test.txt inside the current folders, as well as from all the sub-folders present in that folder. The /Sdirective tells the del command to delete all the files recursively from within the folder and sub-folders. See screenshot below.

You can also use wildcards to delete files of only a particular type, the command to delete files recursively based on wildcards will look like:

del /S /P *.jpg

Note: The /P tells the command to prompt the user before deleting the file, we recommend using this with wildcards.

If you want to delete files from only the current directory change the command as below:

del *.jpg

That’s it simple and easy without having to use any additional tools. If you have your own questions don’t forget to ask us. we will always try our best to find a solution for you.

We have been big fans of Command Line tools, in the past we have talked about a command line tool to recycle your files using the command prompt, and also introduced you to several useful command prompt shortcuts.

We prefer using the command line for several tasks such as copying and moving files since its much more faster than the regular method available for Windows. Recently we came across Disksum, a handy command line tool, that will help you find the largest file or folder that exists in any directory on your hard drive.

Disksum can be used to find:

• Which folders have lots of files in them?
• Which folders use lots of storage?

To use disksum, download the executable and copy it to C:WindowsSystem32 (replace C: with your Windows drive letter). Putting the file in the system32 folder will ensure that you can access the command globally, without having to provide the full path to the executable or adding classpath entries to your environment variables.

Once you have downloaded and copied the file into the system32 folder, open a command prompt and navigate to any directory you want to find the largest file or folder in and issue the command disksumwithout the quotes.

Disksum will scan the files and folders present in the directory and display it in two categories;

1. According to the number of files in ascending order.
2. According to size of the files and folders in ascending order.

Pretty cool right, and it’s quick too.

Disksum [via gHacks]

Amit from Digital Inspiration has put up a list of useful dos command shortcuts which will make your life much easier while using the command prompt. There are two shortcuts I am particularly happy at finding out.

F7 Key Shortcut

Pressing the F7 key will show you a list of commands you had typed in earlier, very useful if you repeat the same commands over and over again and dread typing them.

F1 and F2 shortcut keys

Typing in long commands can always result in mistakes in order to correct those mistakes you may have to type in the whole command again. Instead of typing in the whole command again you can simply press the F1 key and it output one character at a time from the previous command. if you think that is slow you can use the F2 key which will prompt you the number of characters you want to copy from the previous command.

Bonus Tips

Copying from a command prompt is not always easy and you have to always right click the command prompt and then select mark to copy the text. Many popular Linux shell clients like putty and cygwin allow you to easily copy the text by selecting it with your mouse, in fact it auto copies the selected text which turns out to be pretty useful.

If you want to get the same functionality for the Windows command prompt you can do so easily by following the instructions below.

Open the command prompt properties

Select the Quick Edit mode

Once you have have done that click on Ok button. In some instance you may be prompted to choose to either limit your changes to the session or apply it to all future command windows that you may use. Choose the latter so that you do not have to do this again and again.

Once you have done that you can now select any text on the command prompt by simply using your mouse.

Note simply selecting the text will not copy it, you will have to hit the return [enter] button once you have made your selection for it to be copied.

Well hope these tips make your life easier using the dos command prompt. Let me know your views about these.