I have this PowerShell code that compares 2 directories and removes files if the files no longer exist in the source directory.
For example say I have Folder 1 & Folder 2. I want to compare Folder 1 with Folder 2, If a file doesn't exist anymore in Folder 1 it will remove it from Folder 2.
this code works ok but I have a problem where it also picks up file differences on the date/time. I only want it to pick up a difference if the file doesn't exist anymore in Folder 1.
Compare-Object $source $destination -Property Name -PassThru | Where-Object {$_.SideIndicator -eq "=>"} | % {
if(-not $_.FullName.PSIsContainer) {
UPDATE-LOG "File: $($_.FullName) has been removed from source"
Remove-Item -Path $_.FullName -Force -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
}
}
Is there an extra Where-Object {$file1 <> $file2} or something like that.?
I am not sure how you are getting the information for $source and $destination I am assuming you are using Get-ChildItem
What i would do to eliminate the issue with date/time would be to not capture it in these variables. For Example:
$source = Get-ChildItem C:\temp\Folder1 -Recurse | select -ExpandProperty FullName
$destination = Get-ChildItem C:\temp\Folder2 -Recurse | select -ExpandProperty FullName
By doing this you only get the FullName Property for each object that is a child item not the date/time.
You would need to change some of the script after doing this for it to still work.
If I am not getting it wrong, the issue is your code is deleting the file with different time-stamp as compared to source:
Did you try -ExcludeProperty?
$source = Get-ChildItem "E:\New folder" -Recurse | select -ExcludeProperty Date
The following script can serve your purpose
$Item1=Get-ChildItem 'SourcePath'
$Item2=Get-ChildItem 'DestinationPath'
$DifferenceItem=Compare-Object $Item1 $Item2
$ItemToBeDeleted=$DifferenceItem | where {$_.SideIndicator -eq "=>" }
foreach ($item in $ItemToBeDeleted)
{
$FullPath=$item.InputObject.FullName
Remove-Item $FullPath -Force
}
Try something like this
In PowerShell V5:
$yourdir1="c:\temp"
$yourdir2="c:\temp2"
$filesnamedir1=(gci $yourdir1 -file).Name
gci $yourdir2 -file | where Name -notin $filesnamedir1| remove-item
In old PowerShell:
$yourdir1="c:\temp"
$yourdir2="c:\temp2"
$filesnamedir1=(gci $yourdir1 | where {$_.psiscontainer -eq $false}).Name
gci $yourdir2 | where {$_.psiscontainer -eq $false -and $_.Name -notin $filesnamedir1} | remove-item
If you want to compare files in multiple dir, use the -recurse option for every gci command.
How to exclude folders ? Now I hardcode the folder names but i want it to be more flexible.
foreach($file in Get-ChildItem $fileDirectory -Exclude folderA,folderb)
"How to exclude folders ?" , if you mean all folders :
get-childitem "$fileDirectory\\*" -file
but it works only for the first level of $fileDirectory .
This works recursevly :
Get-ChildItem "$fileDirectory\\*" -Recurse | ForEach-Object { if (!($_.PSIsContainer)) { $_}}
or
Get-ChildItem "$fileDirectory\\*" -Recurse | where { !$_.PSisContainer }
You can do this by using the pipeline and a Where-Object filter.
First of all, the idiomatic way to iterate over a group of files in PowerShell is to pipe Get-Childitem to Foreach-Object. So rewriting your command gets:
Get-ChildItem $fileDirectory | foreach {
$file = $_
...
}
The advantage of using the pipeline is that now you can insert other cmdlets in between. Specifically, we use Where-Object to filter the list of files. The filter will pass on a file only if it isn't contained in a given array.
$excludelist = 'folderA', 'folderB'
Get-Childitem $fileDirectory |
where { $excludeList -notcontains $_ } |
foreach {
$file = $_
...
}
If you're going to use this a lot, you can even write a custom filter function to modify the list of files in an arbitrary way before passing to foreach.
filter except($except, $unless = #()) {
if ($except -notcontains $_ -or $unless -contains $_ ){
$_
}
}
$excludelist = 'folderA', 'folderB'
$alwaysInclude = 'folderC', 'folderD'
Get-ChildItem $fileDirectory |
except $excludeList -unless $alwaysInclude |
foreach {
...
}
#dvjz said that -file works only in the first level of a folder, but not recursively. But it seems to work for me.
get-childitem "$fileDirectory\\*" -file -recurse
For future googlers, I have found that files have a property called PSIsContainer which is $true when they are a directory.
A command listing all files in $fileDirectory would be:
foreach ($file in Get-ChildItem $fileDirectory | Where-Object -Property PSIsContainer -eq $false)
{
Write-Host $file.Name
}
Note that -Property is optional for the cmdlet Where-Object.
The simplest way to exclude your folders recursively:
foreach($file in Get-ChildItem $fileDirectory -Exclude {Get-ChildItem folderA},{Get-ChildItem folderB})
Where:
$fileDirectory - search folder
folderA, folderB - excluded folders
I've check other posts and even following those I can't get this to function.
I'm trying to pull all of the ACL information from a drive but exclude the Windows folder.
This is the code I'm using, but it always tries to include the folder. Can someone tell me why this isn't working?
I've also tried Where-Object.
$containers = Get-ChildItem -Path $Path -Recurse -Exclude $exclude |
? {$_.FullName -notmatch '\\windows\\?'}
Main Code:
function Get-PathPermissions {
param ( [Parameter(Mandatory=$true)] [System.String]${Path} )
begin {
$root = Get-Item $Path
($root | Get-Acl).Access |
Add-Member -MemberType NoteProperty -Name "Path" -Value $($root.fullname).ToString() -PassThru
}
process {
$exclude = #('C:\Windows\*')
$containers = Get-ChildItem -Path $Path -Recurse -Exclude $exclude |
? {$_.psIscontainer -eq $true}
if ($containers -eq $null) {break}
foreach ($container in $containers)
{
(Get-Acl $container.FullName).Access |
? { $_.IsInherited -eq $false } |
Add-Member -MemberType NoteProperty -Name "Path" -Value $($container.fullname).ToString() -PassThru
}
}
}
Get-PathPermissions $args[0]
Filtering with -notmatch '\\windows\\?' should work. I'd use the full path, though, to avoid potential undesired exclusions:
$containers = Get-ChildItem -Path $Path -Recurse |
? { $_.FullName -notmatch '^c:\\windows\\?' -and $_.PSIsContainer}
On PowerShell v3 or newer you can also use the -Directory switch for restricting the results to directories:
$containers = Get-ChildItem -Path $Path -Recurse -Directory |
? { $_.FullName -notmatch '^c:\\windows\\?' }
Couple points about the -Exclude parameter. While it does not explicitly mention it in the documentation it seems to work based on file and directory names.... not the full paths themselves. As a result of that point it does not, in any way, work recursively with directories which I think is your actual conundrum.
Since C:\Windows\* is not a valid directory name that is why it is not filtering anything. Jisaak's suggestion of changing $exclude to just "windows" did work in a sense. If you looked at your output you would have noticed that the actual "c:\windows" folder was missing. What you are actually having a problem with is that exclude does nothing for the sub folders of C:\windows which I will guess is what you intended.
There is another SO post about how -Exclude basically sucks. It can be useful as long as you understand its limitations. Ansgar's answer covers the way around that. It will make sure nothing in the tree of C:\windows ends up in your results.
I need to recursively remove all empty folders for a specific folder in PowerShell (checking folder and sub-folder at any level).
At the moment I am using this script with no success.
Could you please tell me how to fix it?
$tdc='C:\a\c\d\'
$a = Get-ChildItem $tdc -recurse | Where-Object {$_.PSIsContainer -eq $True}
$a | Where-Object {$_.GetFiles().Count -eq 0} | Select-Object FullName
I am using PowerShell on Windows 8.1 version.
You need to keep a few key things in mind when looking at a problem like this:
Get-ChildItem -Recurse performs head recursion, meaning it returns folders as soon as it finds them when walking through a tree. Since you want to remove empty folders, and also remove their parent if they are empty after you remove the empty folders, you need to use tail recursion instead, which processes the folders from the deepest child up to the root. By using tail recursion, there will be no need for repeated calls to the code that removes the empty folders -- one call will do it all for you.
Get-ChildItem does not return hidden files or folders by default. As a result you need to take extra steps to ensure that you don't remove folders that appear empty but that contain hidden files or folders. Get-Item and Get-ChildItem both have a -Force parameter which can be used to retrieve hidden files or folders as well as visible files or folders.
With those points in mind, here is a solution that uses tail recursion and that properly tracks hidden files or folders, making sure to remove hidden folders if they are empty and also making sure to keep folders that may contain one or more hidden files.
First this is the script block (anonymous function) that does the job:
# A script block (anonymous function) that will remove empty folders
# under a root folder, using tail-recursion to ensure that it only
# walks the folder tree once. -Force is used to be able to process
# hidden files/folders as well.
$tailRecursion = {
param(
$Path
)
foreach ($childDirectory in Get-ChildItem -Force -LiteralPath $Path -Directory) {
& $tailRecursion -Path $childDirectory.FullName
}
$currentChildren = Get-ChildItem -Force -LiteralPath $Path
$isEmpty = $currentChildren -eq $null
if ($isEmpty) {
Write-Verbose "Removing empty folder at path '${Path}'." -Verbose
Remove-Item -Force -LiteralPath $Path
}
}
If you want to test it here's code that will create interesting test data (make sure you don't already have a folder c:\a because it will be deleted):
# This creates some test data under C:\a (make sure this is not
# a directory you care about, because this will remove it if it
# exists). This test data contains a directory that is hidden
# that should be removed as well as a file that is hidden in a
# directory that should not be removed.
Remove-Item -Force -Path C:\a -Recurse
New-Item -Force -Path C:\a\b\c\d -ItemType Directory > $null
$hiddenFolder = Get-Item -Force -LiteralPath C:\a\b\c
$hiddenFolder.Attributes = $hiddenFolder.Attributes -bor [System.IO.FileAttributes]::Hidden
New-Item -Force -Path C:\a\b\e -ItemType Directory > $null
New-Item -Force -Path C:\a\f -ItemType Directory > $null
New-Item -Force -Path C:\a\f\g -ItemType Directory > $null
New-Item -Force -Path C:\a\f\h -ItemType Directory > $null
Out-File -Force -FilePath C:\a\f\test.txt -InputObject 'Dummy file'
Out-File -Force -FilePath C:\a\f\h\hidden.txt -InputObject 'Hidden file'
$hiddenFile = Get-Item -Force -LiteralPath C:\a\f\h\hidden.txt
$hiddenFile.Attributes = $hiddenFile.Attributes -bor [System.IO.FileAttributes]::Hidden
Here's how you use it. Note that this will remove the top folder (the C:\a folder in this example, which gets created if you generated the test data using the script above) if that folder winds up being empty after deleting all empty folders under it.
& $tailRecursion -Path 'C:\a'
You can use this:
$tdc="C:\a\c\d"
$dirs = gci $tdc -directory -recurse | Where { (gci $_.fullName).count -eq 0 } | select -expandproperty FullName
$dirs | Foreach-Object { Remove-Item $_ }
$dirs will be an array of empty directories returned from the Get-ChildItem command after filtering. You can then loop over it to remove the items.
Update
If you want to remove directories that contain empty directories, you just need to keep running the script until they're all gone. You can loop until $dirs is empty:
$tdc="C:\a\c\d"
do {
$dirs = gci $tdc -directory -recurse | Where { (gci $_.fullName).count -eq 0 } | select -expandproperty FullName
$dirs | Foreach-Object { Remove-Item $_ }
} while ($dirs.count -gt 0)
If you want to ensure that hidden files and folders will also be removed, include the -Force flag:
do {
$dirs = gci $tdc -directory -recurse | Where { (gci $_.fullName -Force).count -eq 0 } | select -expandproperty FullName
$dirs | Foreach-Object { Remove-Item $_ }
} while ($dirs.count -gt 0)
Get-ChildItem $tdc -Recurse -Force -Directory |
Sort-Object -Property FullName -Descending |
Where-Object { $($_ | Get-ChildItem -Force | Select-Object -First 1).Count -eq 0 } |
Remove-Item -Verbose
The only novel contribution here is using Sort-Object to reverse sort by the directory's FullName. This will ensure that we always process children before we process parents (i.e., "tail recursion" as described by Kirk Munro's answer). That makes it recursively remove empty folders.
Off hand, I'm not sure if the Select-Object -First 1 will meaningfully improve performance or not, but it may.
Just figured I would contribute to the already long list of answers here.
Many of the answers have quirks to them, like needing to run more than once. Others are overly complex for the average user (like using tail recursion to prevent duplicate scans, etc).
Here is a very simple one-liner that I've been using for years, and works great...
It does not account for hidden files/folders, but you can fix that by adding -Force to the Get-ChildItem command
This is the long, fully qualified cmdlet name version:
Get-ChildItem -Recurse -Directory | ? { -Not ($_.EnumerateFiles('*',1) | Select-Object -First 1) } | Remove-Item -Recurse
So basically...here's how it goes:
Get-ChildItem -Recurse -Directory - Start scanning recursively looking for directories
$_.EnumerateFiles('*',1) - For each directory...Enumerate the files
EnumerateFiles will output its findings as it goes, GetFiles will output when it is done....at least, that's how it is supposed to work in .NET...for some reason in PowerShell GetFiles starts spitting out immediately. But I still use EnumerateFiles because in testing it was reliably faster.
('*',1) means find ALL files recursively.
| Select-Object -First 1 - Stop at the first file found
This was difficult to test how much it helped. In some cases it helped tremendously, other times it didn't help at all, and in some cases it slowed it down by a small amount. So I really don't know. I guess this is optional.
| Remove-Item -Recurse - Remove the directory, recursively (ensures directories that contain empty sub directories gets removed)
If you're counting characters, this could be shortened to:
ls -s -ad | ? { -Not ($_.EnumerateFiles('*',1) | select -First 1) } | rm -Recurse
-s - alias for -Recurse
-ad - alias for -Directory
If you really don't care about performance because you don't have that many files....even more so to:
ls -s -ad | ? {!($_.GetFiles('*',1))} | rm -Recurse
Side note:
While playing around with this, I started testing various versions with Measure-Command against a server with millions of files and thousands of directories.
This is faster than the command I've been using (above):
(gi .).EnumerateDirectories('*',1) | ? {-Not $_.EnumerateFiles('*',1) } | rm -Recurse
ls c:\temp -rec |%{ if ($_.PSIsContainer -eq $True) {if ( (ls $_.fullname -rec | measure |select -expand count ) -eq "0" ){ ri $_.fullname -whatif} } }
Assuming you're inside the parent folder of interest
gci . -Recurse -Directory | % { if(!(gci -Path $_.FullName)) {ri -Force -Recurse $_.FullName} }
For your case with $tdc it'll be
gci $tdc -Recurse -Directory | % { if(!(gci -Path $_.FullName)) {ri -Force -Recurse $_.FullName} }
If you just want to make sure, that you delete only folders that may contain subfolders but no files within itself and its subfolders, this may be an easier an quicker way.
$Empty = Get-ChildItem $Folder -Directory -Recurse |
Where-Object {(Get-ChildItem $_.FullName -File -Recurse -Force).Count -eq 0}
Foreach ($Dir in $Empty)
{
if (test-path $Dir.FullName)
{Remove-Item -LiteralPath $Dir.FullName -recurse -force}
}
Recursively removing empty subdirectories can also be accomplished using a "For Loop".
Before we start, let's make some subdirectories & text files to work with in $HOME\Desktop\Test
MD $HOME\Desktop\Test\0\1\2\3\4\5
MD $HOME\Desktop\Test\A\B\C\D\E\F
MD $HOME\Desktop\Test\A\B\C\DD\EE\FF
MD $HOME\Desktop\Test\Q\W\E\R\T\Y
MD $HOME\Desktop\Test\Q\W\E\RR
"Hello World" > $HOME\Desktop\Test\0\1\Text1.txt
"Hello World" > $HOME\Desktop\Test\A\B\C\D\E\Text2.txt
"Hello World" > $HOME\Desktop\Test\A\B\C\DD\Text3.txt
"Hello World" > $HOME\Desktop\Test\Q\W\E\RR\Text4.txt
First, store the following Script Block in the variable $SB. The variable can be called later using the &SB command. The &SB command will output a list of empty subdirectories contained in $HOME\Desktop\Test
$SB = {
Get-ChildItem $HOME\Desktop\Test -Directory -Recurse |
Where-Object {(Get-ChildItem $_.FullName -Force).Count -eq 0}
}
NOTE: The -Force parameter is very important. It makes sure that directories which contain hidden files and subdirectories, but are otherwise empty, are not deleted in the "For Loop".
Now use a "For Loop" to recursively remove empty subdirectories in $HOME\Desktop\Test
For ($Empty = &$SB ; $Empty -ne $null ; $Empty = &$SB) {Remove-Item (&$SB).FullName}
Tested as working on PowerShell 4.0
I have adapted the script of RichardHowells.
It doesn't delete the folder if there is a thumbs.db.
##############
# Parameters #
##############
param(
$Chemin = "" , # Path to clean
$log = "" # Logs path
)
###########
# Process #
###########
if (($Chemin -eq "") -or ($log-eq "") ){
Write-Error 'Parametres non reseignes - utiliser la syntaxe : -Chemin "Argument" -log "argument 2" ' -Verbose
Exit
}
#loging
$date = get-date -format g
Write-Output "begining of cleaning folder : $chemin at $date" >> $log
Write-Output "------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------" >> $log
<########################################################################
define a script block that will remove empty folders under a root folder,
using tail-recursion to ensure that it only walks the folder tree once.
-Force is used to be able to process hidden files/folders as well.
########################################################################>
$tailRecursion = {
param(
$Path
)
foreach ($childDirectory in Get-ChildItem -Force -LiteralPath $Path -Directory) {
& $tailRecursion -Path $childDirectory.FullName
}
$currentChildren = Get-ChildItem -Force -LiteralPath $Path
Write-Output $childDirectory.FullName
<# Suppression des fichiers Thumbs.db #>
Foreach ( $file in $currentchildren )
{
if ($file.name -notmatch "Thumbs.db"){break}
if ($file.name -match "Thumbs.db"){
Remove-item -force -LiteralPath $file.FullName}
}
$currentChildren = Get-ChildItem -Force -LiteralPath $Path
$isEmpty = $currentChildren -eq $null
if ($isEmpty) {
$date = get-date -format g
Write-Output "Removing empty folder at path '${Path}'. $date" >> $log
Remove-Item -Force -LiteralPath $Path
}
}
# Invocation of the script block
& $tailRecursion -Path $Chemin
#loging
$date = get-date -format g
Write-Output "End of cleaning folder : $chemin at $date" >> $log
Write-Output "------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------" >> $log
Something like this works for me. The script delete empty folders and folders containing only folder (no files, no hidden files).
$items = gci -LiteralPath E:\ -Directory -Recurse
$dirs = [System.Collections.Generic.HashSet[string]]::new([string[]]($items |% FullName))
for (;;) {
$remove = $dirs |? { (gci -LiteralPath $_ -Force).Count -eq 0 }
if ($remove) {
$remove | rm
$dirs.ExceptWith( [string[]]$remove )
}
else {
break
}
}
I wouldn't take the comments/1st post to heart unless you also want to delete files that are nested more than one folder deep. You are going to end up deleting directories that may contain directories that may contain files. This is better:
$FP= "C:\Temp\"
$dirs= Get-Childitem -LiteralPath $FP -directory -recurse
$Empty= $dirs | Where-Object {$_.GetFiles().Count -eq 0 **-and** $_.GetDirectories().Count -eq 0} |
Select-Object FullName
The above checks to make sure the directory is in fact empty whereas the OP only checks to make sure there are no files. That in turn would result in files nexted a few folders deep also being deleted.
You may need to run the above a few times as it won't delete Dirs that have nested Dirs. So it only deletes the deepest level. So loop it until they're all gone.
Something else I do not do is use the -force parameter. That is by design. If in fact remove-item hits a dir that is not empty you want to be prompted as an additional safety.
$files = Get-ChildItem -Path c:\temp -Recurse -Force | where psiscontainer ; [array]::reverse($files)
[Array]::reverse($files) will reverse your items, so you get the lowest files in hierarchy first.
I use this to manipulate filenames that have too long filepaths, before I delete them.
This is a simple approach
dir -Directory | ? { (dir $_).Count -eq 0 } | Remove-Item
This will remove up all empty folders in the specified directory $tdc.
It is also a lot faster since there's no need for multiple runs.
$tdc = "x:\myfolder" # Specify the root folder
gci $tdc -Directory -Recurse `
| Sort-Object { $_.FullName.Length } -Descending `
| ? { $_.GetFiles().Count -eq 0 } `
| % {
if ($_.GetDirectories().Count -eq 0) {
Write-Host " Removing $($_.FullName)"
$_.Delete()
}
}
#By Mike Mike Costa Rica
$CarpetasVacias = Get-ChildItem -Path $CarpetaVer -Recurse -Force -Directory | Where {(gci $_.fullName).count -eq 0} | select Fullname,Name,LastWriteTime
$TotalCarpetas = $CarpetasVacias.Count
$CountSu = 1
ForEach ($UnaCarpeta in $CarpetasVacias){
$RutaCarp = $UnaCarpeta.Fullname
Remove-Item -Path $RutaCarp -Force -Confirm:$False -ErrorAction Ignore
$testCar = Test-Path $RutaCarp
if($testCar -eq $true){
$Datem = (Get-Date).tostring("MM-dd-yyyy HH:mm:ss")
Write-Host "$Datem ---> $CountSu de $TotalCarpetas Carpetas Error Borrando Directory: $RutaCarp" -foregroundcolor "red"
}else{
$Datem = (Get-Date).tostring("MM-dd-yyyy HH:mm:ss")
Write-Host "$Datem ---> $CountSu de $TotalCarpetas Carpetas Correcto Borrando Directory: $RutaCarp" -foregroundcolor "gree"
}
$CountSu += 1
}
I've written a Powershell script to delete subfolders within a given folder whose name starts with either 0 or 1. This script seems to work only for non-empty folders. I want it to delete the inner contents too. Is there any switch that makes it possible? Also, for some files, I get an error about not having enough permissions whereas the script runs as an administrator.
$srcFolder = "C:\Documents and Settings\setup\Desktop\Temp\"
$folderList = Get-Childitem $a | Where-Object {$_.Name -match "^[01]"}
foreach( $folder in $folderList)
{
$tempFolder = $srcFolder + $folder;
Remove-Item $tempFolder
}
Any ideas?
Regards,
Sujeet Kuchibhotla
You can simplify this quite a bit:
Get-ChildItem $srcFolder | Where {$_.PSIsContainer -and ($_ -match '^[01]')} |
Remove-Item -Recurse -WhatIf