What's the fastest way to delete a large folder in Windows?

Question

The worst way is to send to Recycle Bin: you still need to delete them. Next worst is shift+delete with Windows Explorer: it wastes loads of time checking the contents before starting deleting anything.

Next best is to use rmdir /s/q foldername from the command line. del /f/s/q foldername is good too, but it leaves behind the directory structure.

The best I've found is a two line batch file with a first pass to delete files and outputs to nul to avoid the overhead of writing to screen for every singe file. A second pass then cleans up the remaining directory structure:

del /f/s/q foldername > nul
rmdir /s/q foldername

This is nearly three times faster than a single rmdir, based on time tests with a Windows XP encrypted disk, deleting ~30GB/1,000,000 files/15,000 folders: rmdir takes ~2.5 hours, del+rmdir takes ~53 minutes. More info at Super User.

This is a regular task for me, so I usually move the stuff I need to delete to C:\stufftodelete and have those del+rmdir commands in a deletestuff.bat batch file. This is scheduled to run at night, but sometimes I need to run it during the day so the quicker the better.

Technet documentation for del command can be found here. Additional info on the parameters used above:

• /f - Force (i.e. delete files even if they're read only)
• /s - Recursive / Include Subfolders (this definition from SS64, as technet simply states "specified files", which isn't helpful).
• /q - Quiet (i.e. do not prompt user for confirmation)

Documentation for rmdir here. Parameters are:

• /s - Recursive (i.e. same as del's /s parameter)
• /q - Quiet (i.e. same as del's /q parameter)

Using Windows Command Prompt:

rmdir /s /q folder

Using Powershell:

powershell -Command "Remove-Item -LiteralPath 'folder' -Force -Recurse"

Note that in more cases del and rmdir wil leave you with leftover files, where Powershell manages to delete the files.

use fastcopy, a free tool. it has a delete option that is a lot faster then the way windows deletes files.

use the command prompt, as suggested. I figured out why explorer is so slow a while ago, it gives you an estimate of how long it will take to delete the files/folders. To do this, it has to scan the number of items and the size. This takes ages, hence the ridiculous wait with large folders.

Also, explorer will stop if there is a particular problem with a file,

and to delete a lot of folders, you could also create a batch file with the command spdenne posted.

1) make a text file that has the following contents replacing the folder names in quotes with your folder names:

rmdir /s /q "My Apps"  
rmdir /s /q "My Documents"  
rmdir /s /q "My Pictures"  
rmdir /s /q "My Work Files"

2) save the batch file with a .bat extension (for example deletefiles.bat)
3) open a command prompt (Start > Run > Cmd) and execute the batch file. you can do this like so from the command prompt (substituting X for your drive letter):

X:  
deletefiles.bat