How to delete all the files in a folder except read-only files?

Question

I would like to delete all the files and subfolders from a folder except read-only files.

How to do it using powershell?

Answer 1

For reference, this is a bit easier in V3:

Get-ChildItem -Attributes !r | Remove-Item -Recurse -Force -WhatIf

or the short (alias) version:

dir -at !r | ri -r -f -wh

Answer 2

The only objects that can be read-only are files. When you use the Get-ChildItem cmdlet you are getting objects of type System.IO.FileInfo and System.IO.DirectoryInfo back. The FileInfos have a property named IsReadOnly. So you can do this one liner:

dir -recurse -path C:\Somewhere | ? {-not $_.IsReadOnly -and -not $_.PsIsContainer} | Remove-Item -Force -WhatIf

The PsIsContainer property is created by PowerShell (Ps prefix gives it away) and tells whether or not the item is a file or folder. We can use this to pass only files to Remove-Item.

Remove -WhatIf when you are ready to delete for real.

Answer 3

Check the attribute of each folder and file and then do a conditional based deletion. This is just the pseudo code.

If (-not (a readonly file)) {
delete file
}

So, to check if a given file or folder is readonly:

$item = Get-Item C:\Scripts\Test.txt
$item.IsReadOnly

HTH