Rmdir : Delete directory from command line

Do you want to delete a directory from Windows command prompt(CMD)? This post explains how to use the command rmdir to delete folders and their contents. You can also find examples for each use case of folder deletion – empty folders, non empty folders, folders with white spaced names etc.

Delete folder from CMD

Run the command rmdir on the folder.

How to delete a non empty folder

The simple rmdir does not work for folders having some content.

Use /s option to delete the folder contents along with the folder. This deletes all subfolders recursively.

Force delete a folder without confirmation

To force delete directory, without being asked for confirmation, we can use /Q switch.

We can also use ‘rd’ in place of ‘rmdir‘. Both names refer to the same command. This command works on Windows 2000, Windows XP, Server 2003, Vista, Windows 7 and 10.

Deleting directory with white spaces in the name

Rmdir can delete files with whitespaces in the name, you just need to wrap up the folder name in double quotes as shown in the below example.

Delete contents of a directory but keep the directory

The usecase here is to delete all the contents of the directory but keep the parent directory so that we do not need to create it again. rmdir /Q /S does not work here as it deletes the parent directory too. Rather the below commands should do the trick.

This works in 2 steps – the first command deletes all files, whereas the second one deletes all subdirectories.

Errors

To delete a directory, you should have appropriate access permissions on the directory. Otherwise rmdir throws ‘Access denied’ error.

Thanks dude..I was looking for command line way of deleting nonempty folders.. cheers.

Good old DOS….something tells me one day the world will be saved by a DOS operation. ; )

cannot delete… access is denied. am trying to delete a directory on a flash drive. cannot access permissions because explorer isn’t working. using win7

Note:
Don’t forget to leave a “space” in the command line..
rmdir /Q /S_“folder with spaces in the name” I meant “space”, ait’t “underscore”. And upper case of “S”. Good luck!

Hi
can you show me an example of command to delete this path in bat file.
C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office Communicator

am not able to do this . some error s

Is this in Windows 7/Vista?.
If so then you need to take ownership of the files. You can do that with below command from elevated administrator command prompt.
takeown /F «c:\Program Files\Microsoft Office Communicator» /R /A

then run the below command to delete this folder.

rmdir /S «c:\Program Files\Microsoft Office Communicator»

cd program files\microsoft office communicator
then enter press
rd /s “filename”
Then enter

I am getting the following error “The process cannot access the file because it is being us
ed by another process.” what should be the case now?

You should not have the Dir you want to delete open… Close it and then try the command again

Could you kindly post the command for deleting my folder which is at Drive G. Name of the folder is Recycler. Thanks

Thank you so much. I was trying to delete an entire directory of files, about 200k folders and files, and it kept throwing a warning “this folder is shared with other people”. No such warning with this command!

i followed your instructions but i’m getting error to delete a folder in cmd. ERROR = The system cannot find the the specified…

You should make “C:” your default Directory, tot do this type “cd.. && cd..” The type the command again but leave the “C:\” and just type the rest of the code.
It should look like this: C:>rmdir /Q /S Users\Owner\Songs\New

i have installed new win 8 n a back up of old win 8 is in c drive with a name windows old n its not being deleted by ANY means . i have tried this one as well but it says on all files access is denied

I tried the process many times but it says “access is denied”….
My entire path is “C:\program files\alwil software\avast5” . How should i delete this avast5 folder with all the folders inside it.

run cmd.exe as administrator
make sure avast service is not running

Every time I try it says the file cant be found

you’re really awesome. Googled a 1000 times just for this line

“C:\>rmdir /S nonemptydir
nonemptydir, Are you sure (Y/N)? y”

Thank you so much for your help. This changed my life.

Thank you so much for your help. This changed my life.
please attache more basic command for beginner person for my email
tnx

I need to do that, help me out

D:\abc\ has files and folders in it

but by using rd or rmdir

rmdir d:\abc\ /s /q will delete abc folder also but i don’t want this.

the asterisk stands for ‘anything’ in or below the named directory.

I want to delete subfolders of a folder older than 10 days.I am able to delete files but not folder

I wanted to know the bat file programm for deleting the contents (sub folders) of a folder on certain conditions. can anyone help.?

How to delete folders created programatically with timestamp attached at the end.

Like we do for files :
DEL comp*

Is there any command for folders:
RM com*
or
RMDIR com*

I’m wanting to delete the directory c:\windows.old I followed the instructions above I run CMD as admin, I typed in: takeown /F c:\windows.old /R /A And hit enter key. It did this part properly but Then I typed in: rmdir /Q /S c:\windows.old And after every entry it said Access denied. what is the command line/s i need to type to atlas delete the directory c:\windows.old ? (using windows 10)

I got the same problem…….
please someone help.

thank you .
i m so glad

I followed the instructions above I run CMD as admin, I typed in: takeown /F c:\windows.old /R /A And hit enter key. It did this part properly but Then I typed in: rmdir /Q /S c:\windows.old And after every entry it said Access denied. what is the command line/s i need to type to atlas delete the directory c:\windows.old ? (using windows 10.
Please somebody help………………………

takeown /f D:\OrganizationalUnit\Everyone /r /d y
icacls D:\OrganizationalUnit\Everyone /grant administrators:F /T
attrib -s -h -r D:\OrganizationalUnit\EVERYONE /s /d
forfiles /P D:\OrganizationalUnit\Everyone\ -S -M *.* /D -2 /C “cmd /c del /f /q @PATH”
forfiles /P D:\OrganizationalUnit\Everyone\ /M * /D -2 /C “cmd /c if @isdir==TRUE rmdir /S /Q @file”

Thank you very much! With these commands I could remove all “c:\Windows.old” files and directories.

Hello,
I have four folders and I want to keep two of them along with their contents and delete other two folders. How can I do that?
My Parent folder -> Folder 1 (file1.txt), Folder 2 (file2.txt), Folder 3 (file3.txt), Folder 4 (file4.txt).
Need to delete or remove 2 folders and keep 2 folder with their content.
Need command for this.
Any help will be appreciated.

Super Cool!! Deleted a stubborn non empty directory in no time. Thanks for this guide.

I have several folder: folder1, folder2, folder3
how to delete all “folder” with *

Note: This commands doest’n work:
RM folder*
or
RMDIR folder*

I want to thank you very much for the help on deleting these files. I ended up using the CMD method, but it worked perfectly. Again, thank you.

Thanks. After struggling for months and hunting the web, I was finally able to delete a folder using your advice “Deleting directory with white spaces in the name”

OMG! Thank you! Was trying to delete the remaining empty folders of an old eset nod, but couldn’t. This did the trick (hoping). I’m just wondering if its still in the background somewhere. T.hanks again

in programatically if any changes in the inner files or directory after delete the parent directory doesnot work
eg:
system(“rmdir /s/q \””d:/test/hari\””);——>it works
but after
system(“rmdir /s/q \””d:/test\””);—–>it doesn’t work

Thank you for these still useful tips.

That worked verywell. Thank You

I tried the command, but someone has created the directory repeatedly and now I can not removed the base directory. Help

E:\>rmdir /s /q thur2
thur2\Thur2\Thur2\Thur2\Thur2\Thur2\Thur2\Thur2\Thur2\Thur2\Thur2\Thur2\Thur2\Th
ur2\Thur2\Thur2\Thur2\Thur2\Thur2\Thur2\Thur2\Thur2\Thur2\Thur2\Thur2\Thur2\Thur
2\Thur2\Thur2\Thur2\Thur2\Thur2\Thur2\Thur2\Thur2\Thur2\Thur2\Thur2\Thur2\Thur2\
Thur2\AC_FSQ

1.ZIP – The file name is too long.
thur2\Thur2\Thur2\Thur2\Thur2\Thur2\Thur2\Thur2\Thur2\Thur2\Thur2\Thur2\Thur2\Th
ur2\Thur2\Thur2\Thur2\Thur2\Thur2\Thur2\Thur2\Thur2\Thur2\Thur2\Thur2\Thur2\Thur
2\Thur2\Thur2\Thur2\Thur2\Thur2\Thur2\Thur2\Thur2\Thur2\Thur2\Thur2\Thur2\Thur2\
Thur2\AC_HR1

1.ZIP – The file name is too long.
thur2\Thur2\Thur2\Thur2\Thur2\Thur2\Thur2\Thur2\Thur2\Thur2\Thur2\Thur2\Thur2\Th
ur2\Thur2\Thur2\Thur2\Thur2\Thur2\Thur2\Thur2\Thur2\Thur2\Thur2\Thur2\Thur2\Thur
2\Thur2\Thur2\Thur2\Thur2\Thur2\Thur2\Thur2\Thur2\Thur2\Thur2\Thur2\Thur2\Thur2\
Thur2\AC_HR1

2.ZIP – The file name is too long.
The path thur2\Thur2\Thur2\Thur2\Thur2\Thur2\Thur2\Thur2\Thur2\Thur2\Thur2\Thur2
\Thur2\Thur2\Thur2\Thur2\Thur2\Thur2\Thur2\Thur2\Thur2\Thur2\Thur2\Thur2\Thur2\T
hur2\Thur2\Thur2\Thur2\Thur2\Thur2\Thur2\Thur2\Thur2\Thur2\Thur2\Thur2\Thur2\Thu
r2\Thur2\Thur2\Thur2\AC_FSQ

How To Delete Files & Folders – From The Windows Command Line (CMD, DOS)

Jump Right In:

Navigating To The File Using CMD.

Deleting Folders / Directories Using CMD.

Deleting Files Using CMD.

Creating a dummy file with a specific size.

Delete Many Files Or Folders At Once.

Delete Files Or Folders From Any Directory.

What We’ll Learn:

Welcome!
This guide is all about deleting files and folders from the windows command line.

• We’ll start by learning, how to navigate the file or folder we want to delete form the command prompt.
• How to use the Del and Rmdir commands to remove files and folders respectively.
• How to take advantage of wildcards to perform an operation on multiple files or directories.
• And finally, we’ll learn how to delete files and folders without navigating to the directory in which they are located.

Lets get started!

Navigating To The File Using CMD:

To delete a file or folder using the command prompt we must first navigate to the location of our file.

By default the command line is located at a folder named after your computers username (C:\Users\MyPC). This folder contains your documents, downloads and desktop directories, among others.

To view all the files in this directory use the “Dir” command, which stands for directory.

Every file in this directory will be displayed at once.

If the file or directory you want to delete is located at your desktop for example use the “Cd” command to change the command prompts directory.

Simply type “Cd” followed by the folder you want to navigate into within quotes.

You will at once navigate into the desktop directory and from here you can use the “Dir” command once again to locate the file or folder you want to delete.

If you navigated to the wrong directory by mistake, type:

You will immediately be navigated into the previous directory.

In a similar way you can use a combination of the “Dir” and “Cd” commands to navigate to any directory and locate any file or folder.

Deleting Folders / Directories Using CMD​

To delete a folder use the “Rmdir” command, which stands for “Remove Directory”.

Keep in mind that as the name suggests, “Rmdir” only deletes directories. Trying to delete a file using “Rmdir” will constitute in an error.

You might be wondering why we surrounded the name of our folder in quotes. The quotes tell the command line that the spaces separating the words do not constitute an additional parameter and that they are simply a part of the name of our folder.

“Rmdir” without any parameters only removes folders that are empty, to delete a folder along with the files or folders within it you need to use the /S parameter.
The command would look like this:

After entering the command the command line will ask if you are sure you want to delete this file. Simply press “ y ” to confirm.

If you want to delete a folder in a directory other than your users folder you would need to start the command prompt as an administrator. Be careful when deleting folders with administration privileges, the wrong command can very easily break your computer.

Deleting Files Using CMD​

The command for deleting files using the cmd is “Del“. Unlike “ Rmdir “, “ Del “can only delete files. Using “ Del ” to delete a folder will constitute in an error .

To delete a file simply type “Del” followed by the name of your file along with its extension in quotes.

Your file should be immediately deleted.

Once again if you file is not located in the users folder or within any of its sub-directories you would need to start the command prompt as an administrator.

Be very careful however , the wrong command in an administrator command prompt can very easily break your computer.
To delete more than one file at once simply enter all the names of your files one after the other.

Delete Many Files Or Folders At Once​ — From CMD

Entering the name of every file or folder you want to delete is not always practical.
Work smarter not harder.

You can delete every file that begins with a set of characters by using a wildcard.
Wildcards are special symbols that take the place of characters or words.
The most commonly used wildcard is the asterix.

Typing “Del” followed by a set of characters that is shared among the names of the files we want to delete and an asterix, will delete all of them.

Every file that begins with the word “File” will be deleted.
To delete a set of folders instead, simply replace the Del command with Rmdir.

Similarly you can delete only files of a specific type by specifying its extension before a wildcard. With the following command for example, we can delete every text file in our current directory.

We can even delete every file or folder by using a wildcard, all by itself.
Here is an example using the Rmdir command:

Every folder in your current directory will be deleted along with any contents within it.

Be careful when deleting files and folders, the wrong command can easily delete important files and folders.

Delete Files Or Folders From Any Directory​ (CMD)

While you can use the “Rmdir” and “Del” commands to delete files and folders in your current directory, what if you want to delete a folder or file that’s located in a different directory without having to navigate there yourself?

You would have to enter your command as usual but instead of typing the name of the file or folder you want to delete directly you would have to enter the location of the target directory followed by a backward slash and then name of your folder or file.
It should look something like this:

In the same way you can replace “Rmdir” with any command to complete any task from any directory.

Summary:

• Navigate to the directory the file you want to delete is located with the “CD” and “Dir” commands.
• Use “Rmdir” to delete folders and “Del” to delete files. Don’t forget to surround the name of your folder in quotes if it contains a space.
• Use wildcards to delete many files or folders at once.

That’s It!

You now know how to delete files and folders directly from the command prompt.

If you liked this short guide take a look at a few of our other posts related to the windows command line, or if you really liked it consider enrolling in our video course where you will learn the ins and outs of the Windows command Line.