4dots Empty Folder Cleaner — полезная программа, которая поможет вам найти на своем компьютере все пустые директории. В процессе использования ПК, установки и удаления программ, копирования информации и т.д. на ПК остаются папки, в которых ничего нет: они только захламляют пространство и мешают нормальной работе системы. Найти такие директории в ручном режиме очень сложно — они могут прятаться в самых дальних уголках дисков. А вот с помощью этого инструмента вы точно отыщете все пустые и мусорные каталоги.
Укажите место поиска и запустите сканирование. Уже через непродолжительное время, зависящее от объема анализируемого пространства, перед вами будет список пустых папок. Удобно, что все эти директории поделены на несколько категорий: пустые (синий цвет), мусорные (зеленый), защищенные (замок).
Программа имеет достаточно гибкие настройки, позволяя четко определять критерии поиска как для мусорных, так и пустых директорий. Конечно же присутствует возможность создавать правила для исключений — папки, которые не должны попадать в отчет как пустые.
В общем, можно с уверенностью сказать, что 4dots Empty Folder Cleaner действительно нужная программа, которая сделает ваш ПК более чистым и упорядоченным, позволив избавиться от пустых папок.
Are you searching for empty folder finders and remover tools for Windows PC? If yes then you have come across the right platform. Over time your Windows PC gets cluttered with tons of files, and folders packed with the app and program data. While several of them are quite essential for running your favorite software, there are some redundant and useless files/folders as well that reside even after the software has been uninstalled.
In this article, we’ll take a look at some of the best empty folder finders and removers for Windows PC. Using these nifty utilities, one can easily scan your entire system, locate empty folders/zero-byte files from hard disk, or from a specified location and delete them permanently.
So, without further ado, let’s get to know some of the top empty folder cleaners you can try using for your Windows PC/Laptop.
Top 9 Empty Folders Finder & Remover In Windows 11, 10 PC
In this blog post, we’ll mention both Windows and Third-party fast empty folder finders to organize all your data. Once you review them, let us know your favorite utility in the comments section below.
1. Duplicate Cleaner 5
Duplicate Cleaner 5 is the best empty folder finder and remover software which deeply scans your Windows PC for duplicate photos, videos, music, documents, presentations and other types of files. It works on almost all Windows versions from older to later versions. It offers easy to use interface which is why it is beginner friendly.
You can search for duplicate files by applying filters like file type, size, date, etc. It provides you with the details of the chosen files before you delete them. You can even move duplicate files to the other folder. It offers a selection assistant feature which lets you mark files for deletion, copying, moving, creating shortcuts, etc.
HIGHLIGHTS: Duplicate Cleaner 5
- It allows you to select your favourite folder
- Offers a built-in image browser to view pictures side by side
- It helps you to clean your image library
- It searches for duplicate images of all formats
Download Now
2. Windows PowerShell Tool
As the name entails, Windows PowerShell is a powerful software that allows users to easily scan and remove empty folders, located inside a particular directory.
The application comes preloaded with the Windows Operating System and requires you to execute a simple command line (gci “pathaddress” -r | ? {$_.PSIsContainer -eq $True}) | ?{$_.GetFileSystemInfos().Count -eq 0} | remove-item to easily eliminate all the empty folders in a couple of minutes. Make sure you replace “pathaddress” with the path of your directory.
HIGHLIGHTS: Windows PowerShell Tool
- Helps users automate a range of tedious administrative tasks.
- Ability to find, filter & export information about the PC on a network.
- The Empty Folder Cleaner provides the fastest way to remove empty directories.
- Holds the potential to fetch the entire collection of Empty Folders.
3. Command Prompt Tool
Here comes another effective tool to easily list and eliminate empty folders residing inside your Windows directory. Despite being a reliable way to find empty folders in Windows, it has a major downside as well. It is a bit technical to use and not everyone can navigate through its dashboard with ease.
Once you launch the CMD Console, simply navigate to the directory you wish to access and type the command line: for /f “delims=” %i in (‘dir /s /b /ad ^| sort /r’) do rd “%i” 2>NUL. Hit the Enter button to delete all the empty folders & subfolders from the specified path.
HIGHLIGHTS: Command Prompt Tool
- Holds the ability to store scripts and automate regular tasks.
- Available for most of the Windows Operating Systems.
- Certainly, offers greater control of an OS or application with faster management.
- Provides help in basic troubleshooting like fixing network connection issues & more.
4. 4dots Empty Folder Cleaner
Here comes another free but automatic Empty Folders Finder that you can try using on your Windows PC/Laptop. Its single scan will not only help you to get rid of empty folders from selected locations or from entire hard drives, but also assist users in decluttering the disk.
The application even offers lots of customization options, to get desired results. It even provides the opportunity to ignore hidden folders or permanently delete them. Not only this, with the help of 4dots Empty Folder Cleaner, you can even delete junk data without any hassles.
HIGHLIGHTS: 4dots Empty Folder Cleaner
- Easily delete empty folders in Windows, all thanks to its Explorer-based folder structure.
- Select locations to scan for empty folders, be it entire drive or directories.
- Shows scan results in categories: Empty Folders, Protected, Junk or Normal.
- Ability to exclude certain folders from future scans, according to your needs & preferences.
Get It Here
5. Empty Folder Nuker
Listing out the best Empty Folders Finder and remover for Windows to use and not mentioning Empty Folder Nuker is certainly not possible. It’s a specialized app that will help you locate and delete all the empty folders without putting in much effort.
It runs a comprehensive scan that starts from the base folder of your choice and ensures no zero-byte folders reside on your computer. Plus, this empty folder cleaner is available as a portable version. Hence, you don’t need to install it to get started with it.
HIGHLIGHTS: Empty Folder Nuker
- It’s a nifty and lightweight Empty Folders Finder for Windows PC/Laptop.
- Allows you to find and delete both empty folders and subfolders from your device.
- Consumes a low amount of system resources and requires a reasonable amount of time for performing scans (depending on the size of the base directory).
- Easy-to-use UI, which makes it an effortless choice for both novice & pro users.
Get It Here
6. Ashisoft Empty Folder and Files Finder
Probably one of the best empty folder cleaners ever designed for Windows PC is the Ashisoft Empty Folder and Files Finder. The app initiates a quick scan on the entire drive and once done, shows the list of empty folders and files, and easily deletes them to enjoy an organized collection of data.
The utility is designed and developed with advanced algorithms that ensures no hidden files or folders which contain important files for the program to work properly, gets deleted accidentally. Here’re the major highlights of using this fast empty folder finder.
HIGHLIGHTS: Ashisoft Empty Folder and Files Finder
- Smart and fast solution to delete empty folders or zero size files that may not get identified by other competitive empty folder cleaners.
- Comes with a dedicated feature to delete empty folders directly from the context menu.
- Stylish and straightforward interface to get started with.
- Highly compatible with Windows 10/8.1/8/7/Vista/XP (Both 32 & 64 Bit).
Get It Here
7. Robocopy Tool
Robocopy is another fantastic tool designed for finding and deleting Empty Folders in Windows. Similar to CMD and PowerShell utilities, Robocopy offers a command-line interface. Hence, you need to have little technical expertise to use this free empty folder finder software for Windows 10 / 11 PC.
The whole idea of using a Robocopy tool is using the same folder path, containing both source and destination. The application works flawlessly on older operating system versions like Windows XP and above (both 32 bit and 64 bit). Let’s check out the highlights section now:
HIGHLIGHTS: Robocopy Tool
- An excellent script generator utility that helps users to generate their own scripts.
- Since it’s a standalone executable file, it can be run from any directory.
- Multiple advanced options are offered for customizing the process.
- Provides the ability to remove empty subdirectories, mirror directories etc.
Get It Here
8. Remove Empty Directories
Next on our list of Top 9 Empty Folders Finder for Windows PC is Remove Empty Directories. The application offers the fastest scanning modes that easily list and helps you get rid of empty folders that slow down your device.
Not only this, but with this application, you can easily remove empty directories from your computer as well without any hassles. All the scanning results appear in a Tree View and categorize the results with icons, indicating Trash, Hidden, Locked, Empty, and Failed folders.
HIGHLIGHTS: Remove Empty Directories
- Shows empty directories before deleting them.
- Provides multiple delete modes (including the Recycle Bin).
- Helps users to blacklist and white list directories using various filters.
- This fast empty folder remover receives frequent updates to ensure a smoother user experience.
Get It Here
9. JoseDelEmpty
Probably one of the oldest tools designed for cleaning empty folders on Windows, JoseDelEmpty is still a reliable choice for several users. It’s a nifty and lightweight software that allows users to get rid of old and empty files and folders.
The best part of using this application is that it doesn’t interfere with other systems or hide important files while cleaning empty folders. Unlike other competitive empty folder finder software for Windows, it doesn’t offer any customization options.
HIGHLIGHTS: JoseDelEmpty
- Shows the prompt before erasing folders that contain any file.
- It deletes empty parent folders also.
- Provides a hassle-free way to operate the empty folder remover.
- Suitable choice for users with older PCs and newbies.
Get It Here
10. Bitser
Before concluding today’s list of 9 Best Tools to Find Empty Folders in Windows, we would like to mention a significant entry that surely deserves a place in this list. It’s Bitser, a free Windows software designed for managing archives and backups.
But not all users may know that it offers the strong potential to locate and delete empty folders and subfolders using the Windows explorer context menu. The application also provides a dedicated password manager to protect your confidential files and folders at a secured location. It’s available for free of cost and can be used on Windows XP and above OS versions.
HIGHLIGHTS: Bitser
- Ability to extract ZIP, RAR, ISO, CPIO, and other file formats.
- Gives users the opportunity to scan files for viruses & malware.
- Allows you to create compressed backups of your data.
- Drag-and-drop support for adding and updating archives.
Get It Here
Conclusion – Empty Folders Finder and Remover
So, this was all for today’s article on Top 10 Empty Folders Finder and Remover for Windows 11, 10, 8, 7, XP. If you have any other suggestions to add, do let us know in the comments section below. We’ll be happy to update our list, so that it helps out the majority of the users worldwide, dealing with the same issue.
If you ask for our personal recommendation, we would suggest using Empty Folder Nuker and Ashisoft Empty Folder and Files Finder. In case you don’t wish to invest in any third-party utility to get the job done, consider taking help of Windows PowerShell Tool that would ease the whole task in no time.
Comparing the Empty Folders Finder and Remover Tools
| Tools Name | Compatibility | Price | Version | Owned By |
| Windows Powershell Tool | Windows 10, 8 and 7 | $389/ license | 7.2.2 | Microsoft |
| Command Prompt Tool | Windows 11, 10, 8 and 7 | Free | 2.6 | Microsoft |
| 4dots Empty Folder Cleaner | Windows | Free | 3.1 | 4dots Software |
| Empty Folder Nuker | Windows 2003, 2000, Vista and XP | Free | 1.3 | Simon Wai |
| Ashisoft Empty folder and files finder | Windows 10, 8.1, 8, 7, Vista and XP | Free | 1.0 | Ashisoft |
| Robocopy Tool | Windows NT 4 and later | Freeware | 10.0.19041.1 | Microsoft |
| Remove Empty Directories | Windows 8, 7, Vista and XP | Open source tool | 2.2 | Hx74 |
| JoseDelEmpty | Windows 7, Vista, XP and 2000 | Free | 0.1 | Jose Antonio Lopez Cano |
| Bitser | Windows 10, 8, 7, Vista, XP, 2003 and 2008 | Free | 1.5 | Bitser |
| Vanity Remover | Windows 10, 8, 7, Vista, and XP | Free | 1.5 | Svish |
Frequently Asked Questions
Q1. How do I find empty folders?
If you have enough time on your hand, consider following the manual method to find and delete empty folders on Windows 10 and Windows 11:
- Launch This PC.
- Hit the Search tab to open the Search Menu.
- Now, set the Size filter to Empty. (Make sure All the Subfolder features are already checked)
- As soon as the search is completed, you will be displayed all the files/folders that don’t take up any space on your device.
- At this point, you need to choose the ones you wish to remove and right-click on the same to select the Delete option.
Q2. How do I find empty folders on my Mac?
Here’s what you need to do to find and delete empty folders on Mac:
- Launch the Finder window.
- Press the shortcut keys – Command + F to open Find.
- Navigate to the Kind header and select Folder.
- Now, add the search criterion by hitting the + icon and choosing the number of items. Don’t forget to set it to less than one.
- At this point, you will be able to see all the empty folders on your drive.
- Just select them and hit the Delete option!
Q3. How do I delete empty folders?
Take the help of the best Empty Folders Finder Software like Windows PowerShell, 4dots Empty Folder Cleaner, or Ashisoft Empty Folder and Files Finder to get the job done in no time.
Q4. How do I force delete an empty folder?
If you want to force delete an empty folder, here’s what you need to do:
- Launch the Command Prompt utility and run it as an Administrator.
- On the CMD window, type: del C:\Users\mini\Desktop\test.txt (After del, you need to put the file path where you want to run the scan. And, make sure the file extension in the command should be .txt, .docx, .xls, etc.
- Hit the Enter button to successfully execute the command line.
To force delete a folder, enter another command line: rmdir /s /q folder path (After (After del, you need to put the file path where you want to run the scan., you need to put the folder path where you want to run the scan.)
Also Read
- 18 Best Duplicate Photo Finder And Cleaners
- 17 Best Free Duplicate File Finder & Remover
- 9 Best Duplicate Photo Finder for Mac
- Top 7 Duplicate Email Finder & Remover
- 10 Best Duplicate Music Files Finder & Remover
- 10 Best Free Music Key Finder For Windows
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Описание
DelEmpty Утилита для поиска и удаления пустых папок. Показывает статистику по папкам и файлам. Поддерживает сортировку по файлам, размеру или пути.
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In this article, we have listed the best free methods to delete empty folders in Windows. Find all empty folders on a computer, drive, folder, or entire network.
While empty folders do not occupy much space, it is always good to have fewer files and folders. Certainly, it is a good practice to keep a well-organized file system. Even though empty folders are empty they still occupy space because of their names and structure. That space is negligible, but having fewer files and folders will make your system run faster overall. By following the instructions below, you can delete empty folders and files in just a few steps.
Empty folders can pose several issues in a file system:
-
Clutter: Empty folders contribute to clutter and disorganization within the file structure, making it harder to navigate and locate files efficiently.
-
Confusion: Empty folders can confuse users, leading them to wonder if they were meant for storing files that were accidentally deleted or moved elsewhere.
-
Wasted Space: While empty folders themselves don’t occupy much disk space, they still consume some storage capacity. In systems with a large number of empty folders, this wasted space can add up over time.
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Maintenance Challenges: Managing and maintaining a large number of empty folders can be time-consuming and tedious, especially in shared network drives or collaborative environments.
-
Backup Redundancy: Backup processes may unnecessarily include empty folders, leading to redundant data storage and potentially longer backup times.
Overall, empty folders serve no practical purpose and can detract from the efficiency and organization of a file system. Regularly identifying and removing them helps maintain a tidy and streamlined file structure.
- Delete Empty Folders Using Free Folder Size App
- Steps to Delete Empty Folder in Windows
- Folder Sizes In Windows 11, 10, 8, 7
- Delete Empty Folders From Command Line
- Delete Empty Directories in PowerShell
1. Delete Empty Folders Using Free Folder Size App
Folder Size is the best free tool for disk space analysis and clean-up. In other words, finding and deleting empty folders is just one of its many features. Here are just a few of the reports that it can provide for you.
File and folder reports:
- Find Largest Files
- List Largest Folders
- Largest Files And Folders
- Locate Oldest Files
- Display Oldest Folders
- Search Oldest Files And Folders
- Identify Newest Files
- View Newest Folders
- Display Newest Files and Folders
- Longest Paths and Longest File Names
- Find Empty Folders (zero sizes)
- Locate Empty Folders (zero items)
- List Empty Files (zero sizes)
Most importantly, the tool will list all your folder sizes including all their subfolders and files. Surely, this is extremely useful as such information is not available in Windows Explorer. Therefore, you can easily determine the largest folders and focus on them to free up disk space quickly.
Find Empty Folders and Files
As you can see in the screenshot above the tool displays the file and folder sizes in a beautiful chart too. This makes it very easy to spot the largest files and folders. You can switch between bar and pie charts.
Another nice feature is the option to print folders. The tool can print to the printer or a PDF, TIFF, or other files. Additionally, you can export all files and folders to EXCEL or XML files.
Folder Sizes
Download: Folder Size
2. Steps to Delete Empty Folder in Windows
- Right-click a folder in Windows Explorer and select “Scan with Folder Size”
- Folder Size will list the content of the folder and all file and folder sizes. Further, from the reports menu on the toolbar select “Empty -> Folders (zero sizes)”. To clarify, the reports menu is the one with the down chevron and by default displays “Files and folders”. As you can see in the above screenshot, the title of the button is with bold text.
- The tool will list all the empty folders in the details view on the right.
- Select the empty folders that you want to remove or select all by pressing CTRL+A.
- Delete the empty folder by selecting “Delete” from the context menu or press DEL on the keyboard. As a result, the tool will delete the folders to the recycle bin by default. If you want to delete them permanently hold the SHIFT key while pressing DEL or selecting the “Delete” action.
3. Folder Sizes In Windows 11, 10, 8, 7
The Folder Size application is now Windows 11 compatible. The main improvements that we have applied in version 4.9.5.0 are related to supporting Windows 11. Additionally, we have applied a bug fix for the delete feature. In some rare cases like deleting empty folders, the delete feature could crash. This would happen only if there were multiple nested empty folders. This is a rare situation and probably you may have not experienced the issue. We have also updated the installer and it provides better compatibility with newer Windows versions.
You can find the complete What’s New List Here.
Download Folder Size and save valuable disk space and eliminate empty folders.
4. Delete Empty Folders From Command Line
You can use the Windows Command Prompt console to delete empty folders too. Even though you will not need to install any tools, I do not recommend you to try this method if you are not familiar with those commands. You should always delete files and folders with high caution. Certainly, losing important information is not something that you would like.
Steps to remove empty folder from Window Console (CMD):
- Open Windows Explorer and navigate to the folder or drive in which you want to remove the empty folders.
- Press SHIFT on the keyboard and hold it down while you right-click the folder or drive that you want to clean. Select “Open command window here”. As a result, a black console window will open.
- Copy and paste the following command in it and press ENTER:
for /f "usebackq delims=" %%d in (`"dir /ad/b/s | sort /R"`) do rd "%%d"
Delete Empty Folders Command Line
The rd command will not delete any folders that contain data so you should be safe with the above command. What it does is to find all folders and their subfolder. Then it sorts them in reverse order and tries to delete them. As the rd command can not delete folders that contain subfolders or files, it will delete only the empty folders.
6. Delete Empty Directories in PowerShell
In PowerShell, you can delete empty folders using the Remove-Item cmdlet combined with the -Directory and -Recurse parameters. Here’s how to do it:
-
Open PowerShell on your Windows computer.
-
Navigate to the directory containing the empty folders you want to delete using the cd command. For example:
cd C:\Path\To\Parent\Folder -
Run the following command to delete all empty folders within the current directory and its subdirectories:
Get-ChildItem -Directory -Recurse | Where { $_.GetFiles().Count -eq 0 -and $_.GetDirectories().Count -eq 0 } | Remove-Item -ForceThis command does the following:
Get-ChildItem -Directory -Recurse retrieves all directories recursively.
Where { $_.GetFiles().Count -eq 0 -and $_.GetDirectories().Count -eq 0 } filters the directories to select only those that have no files or subdirectories.
Remove-Item -Force deletes the selected directories forcefully. -
Press Enter to execute the command.
This PowerShell command will search through the specified directory and its subdirectories, identify empty folders, and delete them automatically. Make sure to double-check the directory path and review the folders before executing the command to avoid accidental deletion of important data.
Conclusion
While the above example may get the job done it can not handle situations where the folders contain empty files. It will not delete folders that contain useless files either. Such files for example are the “thumbs.db” files. Windows creates those to store a preview of your image files. It does not handle UNICODE characters too. If you have folders with non-Latin letters in the name the command will not process them.
Using the free Folder Size application to delete empty folders is much simpler and free. Being able to visually inspect and review the folders is also much more convenient. The tool can also delete the folders to the Recycle Bin. Therefore, if you have deleted something by mistake, you can just use the “Restore” option to undelete the folder.
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Home » Software » Empty Folder Finder: Top 7 Tools for PC & How to Use Them [Apps & Scripts]
An empty folder finder can help you declutter your PC. From useless junk like leftover software files as well as automatically generated download folders and cache folders, these can really add up.
Today, we’ll show you the best folder-finder apps and scripts so you can speed up your PC cleaning and organizing. Remember to use them carefully and consider backing up your data in case you mistakenly delete an important folder.
Let’s get kicking.
Delete Empty Folders Using a Third-Party Program
Using a separate tool to delete a number of empty folders is going to be much faster and easier than trying to do it yourself manually. Here are some tools to look at.
1. Remove Empty Directories
Remove Empty Directories is probably the most well known empty folder deleting tool, but like many others, it hasn’t been updated in several years. The last update for this program was 2011. It still works great though, has enough functions for most users and manages to squeeze everything into a portable executable under 200KB in size.
After selecting and scanning the base folder or drive, the view will be populated with a tree view containing different colored text and icons. The icon list on the right will tell you if the folders are truly empty, contain trash files and are hidden, locked or can’t be read. Names in red are automatically marked for deletion. Right click on a red empty folder and select “Protect once” to ignore it for this session or “Add to ignore list” to permanently ignore the folder in future.
In the the Settings tab you can choose to delete to the Recycle bin or directly, skip predefined folders (7 are already added), add or remove what are classed as trash files (3 are pre entered), add a right click menu entry to Explorer, and set a few advanced options like recursive depth. Right click and run the program as administrator to enter Admin mode and allow deleting of protected folders.
Download Remove Empty Directories
2. EmptyFolderNuker
EmptyFolderNuker is probably the easiest GUI based empty folder remover here. It’s a bit old dating from 2007, and the official website is no longer there but the tool still works as intended, even in Windows 10. The program is also a single portable executable.
Browse for the folder or drive you want to check, then press the Find button. Make sure the two boxes are checked to scan the path recursively and treat folders as empty if they contain only empty folders. The Shell Integration box is useful and places a right click “Find empty folders” entry when you right click on a folder. The program will then open with the folder you clicked on as the base path.
You need to be slightly careful at the results window as all empty folders are pre-checked for deletion. It’s recommended to press Uncheck All and choose the folders selectively or go through the list and make sure to uncheck any folders you want to leave alone. After you press Delete, a UAC prompt will pop up if any folders require administrator privileges to remove.
Download Empty Folder Nuker
3. Fast Empty Folder Finder
Like Empty Folder Nuker, this tool is quite old and its official website is no longer around. Fast Empty Folder Finder is a bit newer though and from 2011. The .NET Framework v2 is required so Windows 8 and 10 users will need to have the .NET 3.5 optional feature installed. Besides the .NET requirement, Fast Empty Folder Finder is portable.
When you press the Scan Locations button to add a folder, several different base folders can be added at once. This is useful and can stop the program scanning thousands of folders you are not interested in. After pressing Scan Now! select all the empty folders you want to remove using left click, Shift+click or Ctrl+click or use the List > Check menu options. Checked files can be deleted permanently or to the Recycle bin for a bit of added safety.
Although the lower pane Explorer window might be useful to check if a folder is really empty, it is mostly unneeded and can be turned off from the View menu. Empty folder lists can be exported to a text file for later use. One issue is Fast Empty Folder Finder doesn’t delete a folder if it only contains empty folders. If you have a path of foldera\folderb and both folders contain no files, only folderb will be deleted.
Download Fast Empty Folder Finder
4. 4dots Empty Folder Cleaner
Empty Folder Cleaner by 4dots Software has both installer and portable versions available. The only major difference between the two is the installed version has the option to add a right click context menu entry so you can delete empty folders from the folder you right click on.
After selecting a drive or folder to scan and scanning it, you then have the opportunity to delete completely empty folders or those that contain what are considered “junk” files. By default, junk files are desktop.ini, thumbs.db and .tmp files although you can add to or edit this list in the program’s options. Press either the green or blue buttons to select all empty or junk folders or selectively check the boxes for individual folders.
You can also add folders to ignore (5 system folders are already included), folders and files to protect from deletion, and keep backups of the deleted folders for later restoration. To enable the backup option go to Tools > Options and select Keep Backups. The program will ask for administrative privileges after you press the delete button if administrator protected folders are listed for deletion.
Download 4dots Empty Folder Cleaner
Other potentially useful empty folder deleting programs we tried include Empty Folders Finder (part of Glary Utilities), JoseDelEmpty, Vanity Remover, Empty Folder Finder and DelEmpty (GUI based).
Note: Some tools were ineffective in finding the real number of empty folders on our system. The tools above found thousands but Advanced SystemCare Free only found 23 empty folders and Puran Delete Empty Folders found just 7. You are welcome to try these programs but we found they were nowhere near thorough enough to be considered truly useful.
Delete Empty Folders From the Command Line or Scripts
Letting a dedicated program find and delete empty folders is the best choice for users of all skill levels. Advanced users might also want some extra options like being able to delete empty folders from the command line or batch scripts. Here are a few ways to do that using third party command line and built in Windows utilities.
5. DelEmpty (by Intelliadmin)
There is another tool called DelEmpty that has a GUI but this one is made solely for the command line. The main arguments to remove folders and subfolders from a given path are:
delempty -S -D [-Y] [-L] pathtofolder
The -D argument is required and tells the tool to delete empty folders, the -S will optionally include sub-folders. Two other useful arguments are -Y which requires confirmation to delete each folder and -L lists the folders to be deleted without deleting anything. This is useful if you want to redirect the folder list to a text file. DelEmpty is also able to delete zero byte files by including -F, run the tool without arguments for a list.
Download Intelliadmin DelEmpty
6. RmEmpty
For complete ease of use while deleting empty folders from the command line, this old tool from around the year 2000 is about as simple as it gets.
RmEmpty pathtofolder [pathtofolder2]
Supply at least one folder as an argument and RmEmpty will search the path recursively and delete empty folders. Multiple path arguments can be included so you can delete from several different base folders at once.
Download RmEmpty
7. Windows RoboCopy Command
There are several different ways in which you can delete empty folders using built in Windows commands, most require the use of a For loop. The Robocopy (Robust File Copy) tool is much easier and a simple trick forces it to remove all empty folders in the given path. Robocopy is available as standard in Windows Vista and above.
Robocopy pathtofolder samepathtofolder /S /Move
Instead of supplying a different source and destination folder you simply use the same for both. The addition of /Move tries to move the files from and to the same location, so Robocopy skips them. The extra /S argument forces Robocopy to also move subfolders but not empty folders. Only the empty folders are processed and deleted while everything else is skipped because it already exists. This leaves all files and non empty folders completely intact.
How do I stop Windows from creating folders?
To stop Windows from creating unnecessary folders, you can disable system features like System Restore and manage temp files.
First, turn off System Restore by navigating to sysdm.cpl > System Protection > Turn off system protection.
Then, delete temporary files by pressing Windows + R, typing temp, and deleting the files. You can also adjust application settings to limit cache or log creation.
For advanced control, use Disk Cleanup to remove unnecessary files, or manage folder creation using the Group Policy Editor on Pro/Enterprise versions. Consider third-party tools to monitor and prevent folder creation.
Note: These tools need to be run in an administrative Command Prompt or the script needs running as administrator for all folders to be processed on the C drive. Otherwise only those empty folders inside the current user’s folder will be deleted and those outside (such as in Program Files) will receive an access denied error message.