I need to remove folders by a specific name, if it exist - powershell

Question

I have a file server where the users have their own diskspace. And I need to delete a certain folder on each users diskspace, but not all users have this folder. Also the users are divided into department, so the layout of the folders looks like this:
D:\users\departmentA\usernameA\foldertodelete
D:\users\departmentA\usernameB\foldertodelete
D:\users\departmentB\usernameC\foldertodelete
D:\users\departmentC\usernameD\foldertodelete
...
How can I make this happen? Im thinking of using Poweshell, and I have been reading about Test-Path, but I dont know how to work with this then the path is different for all the users.

Answer 1

This is fairly straightforward with PowerShell:
$TargetName = "foldertodelete"
$BaseDir = "D:\Users"
# Iterate over each department directory
foreach($Department in #(Get-ChildItem $BaseDir -Directory)){
# Within each department, iterate over each user directory
foreach($User in #(Get-ChildItem $Department -Directory)){
# Check if the undesirable folder exists
if([System.IO.Directory]::Exists(($TargetPath = Join-Path -Path $User -ChildPath $TargetName))){
# If so, remove the directory and all child items
Remove-Item $TargetPath -Recurse
}
}
}
The -Directory parameter on Get-ChildItem is available in PowerShell 3.0 and above. For PowerShell 2.0 you could use:
Get-ChildItem $BaseDir |Where {$_.PSIsContainer}

Answer 2

Thank you for your answer. I do have some problem making the script work. It looks like the script don't understand the BaseDir part. The department folder where the users have their folder is located on D:\Users. I copied the script to C:\skript. And the error message show that it is looking for the userfolder on my C drive. It should look on D:\users\AAL-users\username
Here is the error message:
PS C:\skript> .\RemoveFolder.ps1
Get-ChildItem : Cannot find path 'C:\skript\AAL-users' because it does not exist.
At C:\skript\RemoveFolder.ps1:7 char:22
+ foreach($User in #(Get-ChildItem $Department -Directory)){
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+ CategoryInfo : ObjectNotFound: (C:\skript\AAL-users:String) [Get-ChildItem], ItemNotFoundException
+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : PathNotFound,Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.GetChildItemCommand
I did try to copy the script to my D:\users folder. This time I got no error messages, but the script did not delete any folders as it is suposed to.

Answer 3

Try the below...
Remove-Item -path D:\Users\* -Filter *specificnameof the folder* -WhatIf --(Whatif allows you to test a command before you run)
Remove whatif and execute the delete
Remove-Item -path C:\users\* -Filter *specificnameof the folder*

Answer 4

Here is the exact code I run now:
PS D:> Remove-Item -path "D:\DU Users*" -Filter notes85
PS D:>
No error messages, but also, the folder in question is not removed.