How in the Tech

Search and Remove Empty Directories

By Adam Myers ⋅ October 4, 2008 ⋅ Tags: File Management

I trial a bunch of software throughout the week looking for those hidden gems, both for this site and for my other profession. The honest reality, a fair bit of software I download and install doesn’t live up to it’s website’s billing – often times unable to perform all if it’s supposed feature set. No harm, no foul; I do enjoy playing with new things and when they don’t make the grade I simply uninstall it and move on. If you’ve taken the time to look around your file system, particularly c:\program files\, you’ll likely find remnants of software from yesteryear. Additionally, the Start Menu also tends to collect cruft over time, though this problem tends to be hidden thanks in part to Vista’s centering around search in it’s start menu. Still, I like to keep a clean and organized computer so these types of things tend to annoy me to no end.

Today I came across Remove Empty Directories or RED, a free program that does just as its name suggests. Pass RED a directory to scan and it will return all folders that have nothing in them as well as the ability to quickly delete the folders. Not only can the depth of the scan be adjusted, but rules can be put in place to match specific file types. How often have you looked in your Music folder and found AlbumArt but no MP3? RED is perfect for this. One word of caution, RED will delete folders immediately without first going into the Recycle Bin!