Comments on: Tips of How to Delete Folder Contents While Maintaining Folder Tree Structure in Windows XP PC

By: Paul M.

Paul M. — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 19:54:09 +0000

Using this post and info from http://blogs.msdn.com/oldnewthing/archive/2008/04/17/8399914.aspx
I pieced together this one line command to put in the “Empty Folder Contents” registry key. It gives a warning with pauses, which can be tweaked (I couldn’t figure out how to have it recognize a yes or no and quit in a one line command) and deletes everything in the directory, including empty directories.

Just follow this post and put the following in for the Default Command in the registry:

cmd /c “echo BE CAREFUL – X out of the window if you don’t want to delete directory contents && pause && echo LAST WARNING – all files and subdirectories will be deleted && pause && cd /d %1 && del /s /f /q *.* && for /f “usebackq delims=” %%d in (`”dir /ad/b/s | sort /R”`) do rd “%%d”"

By: nigel

nigel — Tue, 05 May 2009 20:17:14 +0000

greatest thing i have ever encountered. imagine that the internet is ACTUALLY helpful

By: Alexander Char

Alexander Char — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 18:31:36 +0000

hi i can see the context menu when i right click but when i click the menu it says
“This file does not have a program associated with it for performing this action.Create an association in the Folder Options control panel

By: anonymous

anonymous — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 19:23:29 +0000

be careful cutting and pasting from the web page into regedit.

You may find that the “double-quotes” copied from the web page are not the same as the double quotes needed by the command.

It didn’t work for me until I deleted and reenterd the “double-quotes” in regedit. Now it works fine.

Its a bit dangerous tho. Is there a way of poping up a dialog box “Are you sure?” ???

By: snpages.info

snpages.info — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 02:41:33 +0000

Ty Myrick,
In other words, you want to get all of the files in a subfolder structure and put them in a single folder.
Use the first comment from alias above,
but instead of delete all the files, cut these files and then paste into a new and empty folder.

By: Ty Myrick

Ty Myrick — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 20:59:15 +0000

Is there any way to do the reverse of this? Sometimes I want to delete a subfolder structure without deleting the files within it. Is there any way to delete a folder and move the files up in the hierarchy?

By: jase07

jase07 — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 16:35:38 +0000

hey! what if i wanted to delete all the contents in the folder by using the context menu what string should i place in the dafault key?

By: jase07

jase07 — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 16:29:11 +0000

this is great thanks

By: Bob Learmonth

Bob Learmonth — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 16:48:05 +0000

What are the symbols that look like reverse Bs?
in the string. I tried copying and pasting and the symbols turned to &&. Right clicking a folder showed the string entered in the reg not empty folder contents

By: Add “Empty Folder Contents” To Vista Right Click Context Menu To Delete Files Without Removing Folders » My Digital Life

Tue, 07 Oct 2008 10:24:49 +0000

[...] delete and remove the files, but not the folders that storing the files. There is a trick to add “Empty Folder Contents” contextual item into right click context menu (much like how user access the “Delete” function) in [...]

By: Alexandre

Alexandre — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 18:22:01 +0000

Hi, [alias] said it all, F3 does work. I´ve tried editing the registry as told above for the tip in Windows Vista x64, the instruction appears in right click menu, but did not delete anything.

By: alias

alias — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 16:09:39 +0000

an alternative would be to press F3, use * to search for all the files in folder. Sort by type and delete all the files and separate out all the subfolders. Would take a few seconds, would work on any computer instead of having to edit the registry.