Command line del c:mydir*.* – delete subfolders also

I have a script that runs the command:

del c:mydir*.*

Is there a command line switch I can use that will also delete all subfolders in that directory? Thanks!

If there are files in the C:mydir directory then you’ll need to do both lines. Otherwise, the first line will do what you want:

FOR /D %i IN (C:mydir*) DO RD /S /Q "%i"
DEL /Q C:mydir*.* 

That preserves the C:mydir directory.

Edit: David1235 is quite right. If you want to do this in a batch file, you’ll need to double-up the “%” in the “FOR …” line.

It’s a little unclear to me why David1235’s script needs the “pushd” and “popd” when you can specify the path right in the “FOR …” and “DEL …” lines, though.

If you want to run your script from anywhere, try

@echo off
pushd "C:mydir"
for /d %%d in (*.*) do rmdir /s /q "%%d"
del /q *.*
popd

In a batch script, you need the double percent signs. From “help for”:

To use the FOR command in a batch program, specify %%variable instead
of %variable.  Variable names are case sensitive, so %i is different
from %I.

Is there a reason that:


DEL /Q /S C:mydir*


won’t work?

Instead of complex FOR…LOOPS etc. I would just use:

c:
cdmydir
del /q *.* /s 

… but an even faster method is:

rd /q /s c:mydir

as RD is “remove directory” just as the old DELTREE