A few concrete reasons it’s worth clearing them out:<\/p>\n
- \n
- Clutter<\/strong> – more folders to scroll past when you’re looking for the one you actually need.<\/li>\n
- Confusion<\/strong> – an empty folder with a familiar name makes you wonder if something got deleted or moved by mistake.<\/li>\n
- Backup bloat<\/strong> – backup tools often copy folder structures<\/a> wholesale, empty ones included, which adds a little unnecessary time and redundancy to every backup run.<\/li>\n
- Maintenance overhead<\/strong> – on a shared drive with a lot of contributors, empty folders pile up fast and nobody ever seems to be the one who cleans them.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
- \n
- Delete Empty Folders Using the Free Folder Size App<\/a><\/li>\n
- Steps to Delete an Empty Folder in Windows<\/a><\/li>\n
- Delete Empty Folders From the Command Line<\/a><\/li>\n
- Delete Empty Directories in PowerShell<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
1. Delete Empty Folders Using the Free Folder Size App<\/h2>\n
Folder Size<\/a> is free, and finding\/deleting empty folders is really just one of several reports it can run – it’s also useful for general disk cleanup once you’re already in there. A few of the other reports available:<\/p>\n
- \n
- Find Largest Files<\/a><\/li>\n
- List Largest Folders<\/a><\/li>\n
- Largest Files And Folders<\/a><\/li>\n
- Locate Oldest Files<\/li>\n
- Display Oldest Folders<\/li>\n
- Search Oldest Files And Folders<\/li>\n
- Identify Newest Files<\/li>\n
- View Newest Folders<\/li>\n
- Display Newest Files and Folders<\/li>\n
- Longest Paths and Longest File Names<\/a><\/li>\n
- Show Hidden Files & Folders<\/a><\/li>\n
- Show Folder Size Charts<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
For a full breakdown of the empty-folder and empty-file reports specifically – including the difference between zero-size and zero-item folders – see our guide on how to find empty folders and files in Windows<\/a>.<\/p>\n
The tool lists every folder’s size<\/a>, including everything in its subfolders – something Windows Explorer just doesn’t show you on its own. That makes it easy to spot which folders are worth investigating, whether they’re the largest ones or, in this case, the emptiest.<\/p>\n
![\"Find](\"https:\/\/www.mindgems.com\/products\/Folder-Size\/images\/screenshots\/FolderSize.png\")
Find Empty Folders and Files<\/p><\/div>\n
Results can also be viewed as a bar or pie chart if you’d rather see the breakdown visually than scroll through a list.<\/p>\n
Worth knowing about too: the app can print a folder list<\/a> to a printer or PDF, and export everything to Excel or XML<\/a> if you need a record of what was cleaned up.<\/p>\n
![\"Folder](\"https:\/\/www.mindgems.com\/products\/Folder-Size\/images\/screenshots\/FolderSize-Pie.png\")
Folder Sizes<\/p><\/div>\n
Download: Folder Size<\/a><\/p>\n
2. Steps to Delete an Empty Folder in Windows<\/h2>\n
- \n
- Right-click a folder<\/a> in Windows Explorer and choose “Scan with Folder Size.”<\/li>\n
- Once it’s scanned, open the reports menu on the toolbar (the button with the down chevron, showing “Files and folders” by default) and select “Empty -> Folders (zero sizes).”<\/li>\n
- Every empty folder in that location shows up in the list on the right.<\/li>\n
- Select the ones you want gone, or press CTRL+A to grab all of them at once.<\/li>\n
- Hit Delete or right-click and choose “Delete” – by default these go to the Recycle Bin. Hold SHIFT while deleting if you want them gone permanently instead.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
3. Delete Empty Folders From the Command Line<\/h2>\n
No extra software needed here, but this one deserves some caution – it’s easy to point it at the wrong folder if you’re not careful, and there’s no confirmation prompt before it starts deleting.<\/p>\n
Steps to remove empty folders from Command Prompt:<\/h3>\n
- \n
- Open File Explorer and navigate to the folder or drive you want to clean up.<\/li>\n
- Hold SHIFT and right-click the folder or drive, then choose “Open command window here.” A console window opens.<\/li>\n
- Paste this command and press Enter:
\nfor \/f \"usebackq delims=\" %%d in (`\"dir \/ad\/b\/s | sort \/R\"`) do rd \"%%d\"<\/code><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n![\"Delete](\"https:\/\/www.mindgems.com\/article\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/Delete-Empty-Folders-Comman-Line.png\")
<\/a>Delete Empty Folders Command Line<\/p><\/div>\n
The rd<\/strong> command won’t touch anything that still has data in it – it walks through every folder and subfolder, sorts them in reverse order, and only successfully deletes the ones that are genuinely empty. Anything with files or subfolders still inside just gets skipped.<\/p>\n
4. Delete Empty Directories in PowerShell<\/h2>\n
In PowerShell<\/a>, the Remove-Item<\/mark> cmdlet combined with -Directory<\/mark> and -Recurse<\/mark> does the same job as the command-line method above, just with a bit more control.<\/p>\n
- \n
- Open PowerShell.<\/li>\n
- Navigate to the folder you want to clean up:
cd C:\\Path\\To\\Parent\\Folder<\/code><\/li>\n- Run:
Get-ChildItem -Directory -Recurse | Where { $_.GetFiles().Count -eq 0 -and $_.GetDirectories().Count -eq 0 } | Remove-Item -Force<\/code>What each part does: Get-ChildItem -Directory -Recurse<\/strong> pulls every directory recursively; Where { … }<\/strong> filters that list down to only the ones with zero files and zero subdirectories; Remove-Item -Force<\/strong> deletes whatever’s left in that filtered list.<\/li>\n- Press Enter to run it.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
Double-check the path before running this – once it executes, there’s no confirmation step and no easy way to tell it “actually, not that one.”<\/p>\n
What These Methods Won’t Catch<\/h2>\n
None of the command-line or PowerShell methods above will touch a folder that contains junk files rather than nothing at all – a stray thumbs.db<\/strong> file, for instance, which Windows generates automatically to store image previews<\/a>. As far as the command is concerned, that folder isn’t empty, so it gets skipped even though there’s nothing in it you’d actually want to keep. Folder names<\/a> with non-Latin characters can also trip up the command-line method specifically, since it doesn’t handle Unicode.<\/p>\n
This is really where Folder Size has the advantage – it flags folders like this by size or item count, lets you actually see what’s inside them before anything gets deleted, and sends removed folders to the Recycle Bin by default so a mistake is recoverable with a simple restore rather than gone for good.<\/p>\n
If you haven’t identified all your empty folders yet, start with our guide on how to find empty folders and files in Windows<\/a> before working through the deletion steps here.<\/p>\n
\nHow do I delete all empty folders in Windows 10 or 11?<\/h3>\n
The fastest way is to right-click a folder or drive and choose “Scan with Folder Size,” then filter the results to show only empty folders. Select all of them with CTRL+A and delete in one go. Alternatively, a Command Prompt or PowerShell command can do the same job without installing software.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\nIs there a free tool to find and delete empty folders?<\/h3>\n
Yes. Folder Size is a free tool that scans a drive or folder and lists every empty folder it finds, along with file counts and sizes<\/a>, so you can review and delete them safely from within the same app.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\nHow do I delete empty folders using Command Prompt?<\/h3>\n
- Run:
- List Largest Folders<\/a><\/li>\n
- Steps to Delete an Empty Folder in Windows<\/a><\/li>\n
- Confusion<\/strong> – an empty folder with a familiar name makes you wonder if something got deleted or moved by mistake.<\/li>\n