Delete a folder with too many characters in its path.

If you want to delete a folder and it gives you the error message: ‘Path is too long’, you can simply keep digging into the folder untill you find a point where it doesn’t give you the error anymore, or you can create a batch file containing the following text:

@echo off
if {%1}=={} @echo Syntax: DelFolder FolderPath&goto :EOF
if not exist %1 @echo Syntax: DelFolder FolderPath - %1 NOT found.&goto :EOF
setlocal
set folder=%1
set MT="%TEMP%\DelFolder_%RANDOM%"
MD %MT%
RoboCopy %MT% %folder% /MIR
RD /S /Q %MT%
RD /S /Q %folder%
endlocal

This script uses RoboCopy, which is included in the Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Resource Kit and can be downloaded here. It is included in Windows 7.

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2 Comments

  • rmck says:

    I had this problem and searched many threads but my dev gave me a easy (for me) solution ( he did all the research ).

    install Cygwin
    cd to the folder with the files you want to delete. I want to delete everything in longpathfile has a file named runs I want to delete:

    $ cd longpathfile/
    rm -rf runs/

  • Erik says:

    True, it can be solved using Cygwin. Cygwin creates a linux-like environment on your windows machine. It’s quite a bloated installation for just solving this problem IMHO.

    But nevertheless it works, and when you work in a mixed windows-linux environment it sure brings a couple of extra advantages.

    Thnxs for your input.

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