“rm -rf” equivalent for Windows?

Question

I need a way to recursively delete a folder and its children.

Is there a prebuilt tool for this, or do I need to write one?

DEL /S doesn\'t dele

Answer 1

RMDIR [/S] [/Q] [drive:]path

RD [/S] [/Q] [drive:]path

• /S Removes all directories and files in the specified directory in addition to the directory itself. Used to remove a directory tree.

• /Q Quiet mode, do not ask if ok to remove a directory tree with /S

Answer 2

Using Powershell 5.1

 get-childitem *logs* -path .\ -directory -recurse | remove-item -confirm:$false -recurse -force

Replace logs with the directory name you want to delete.

get-childitem searches for the children directory with the name recursively from current path (.).

remove-item deletes the result.

Answer 3

del /s /q directorytobedeleted

Answer 4

For deleting a directory (whether or not it exists) use the following:

if exist myfolder ( rmdir /s/q myfolder )

Answer 5

The accepted answer is great, but assuming you have Node installed, you can do this much more precisely with the node library "rimraf", which allows globbing patterns. If you use this a lot (I do), just install it globally.

yarn global add rimraf

then, for instance, a pattern I use constantly:

rimraf .\**\node_modules

or for a one-liner that let's you dodge the global install, but which takes slightly longer for the the package dynamic download:

npx rimraf .\**\node_modules

Answer 6

here is what worked for me:

Just try decreasing the length of the path. i.e :: Rename all folders that lead to such a file to smallest possible names. Say one letter names. Go on renaming upwards in the folder hierarchy. By this u effectively reduce the path length. Now finally try deleting the file straight away.