How to delete all files and folders in a directory

Question

Using C#, how can I delete all files and folders from a directory, but still keep the root directory?

Answer 1

Call from main

static void Main(string[] args)
{ 
   string Filepathe =<Your path>
   DeleteDirectory(System.IO.Directory.GetParent(Filepathe).FullName);              
}

Add this method

public static void DeleteDirectory(string path)
{
    if (Directory.Exists(path))
    {
        //Delete all files from the Directory
        foreach (string file in Directory.GetFiles(path))
        {
            File.Delete(file);
        }
        //Delete all child Directories
        foreach (string directory in Directory.GetDirectories(path))
        {
             DeleteDirectory(directory);
        }
        //Delete a Directory
        Directory.Delete(path);
    }
 }

Answer 2

private void ClearFolder(string FolderName)
{
    DirectoryInfo dir = new DirectoryInfo(FolderName);

    foreach (FileInfo fi in dir.GetFiles())
    {
        fi.IsReadOnly = false;
        fi.Delete();
    }

    foreach (DirectoryInfo di in dir.GetDirectories())
    {
        ClearFolder(di.FullName);
        di.Delete();
    }
}

Answer 3

The only thing you should do is to set optional recursive parameter to True.

Directory.Delete("C:\MyDummyDirectory", True)

Thanks to .NET. :)

Answer 4

Yes, that's the correct way to do it. If you're looking to give yourself a "Clean" (or, as I'd prefer to call it, "Empty" function), you can create an extension method.

public static void Empty(this System.IO.DirectoryInfo directory)
{
    foreach(System.IO.FileInfo file in directory.GetFiles()) file.Delete();
    foreach(System.IO.DirectoryInfo subDirectory in directory.GetDirectories()) subDirectory.Delete(true);
}

This will then allow you to do something like..

System.IO.DirectoryInfo directory = new System.IO.DirectoryInfo(@"C:\...");

directory.Empty();

Answer 5

this will show how we delete the folder and check for it we use Text box

using System.IO;
namespace delete_the_folder
{
public partial class Form1 : Form
{
    public Form1()
    {
        InitializeComponent();
    }

    private void Deletebt_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
        //the  first you should write the folder place
        if (Pathfolder.Text=="")
        {
            MessageBox.Show("ples write the path of the folder");
            Pathfolder.Select();
            //return;
        }

        FileAttributes attr = File.GetAttributes(@Pathfolder.Text);

        if (attr.HasFlag(FileAttributes.Directory))
            MessageBox.Show("Its a directory");
        else
            MessageBox.Show("Its a file");

        string path = Pathfolder.Text;
        FileInfo myfileinf = new FileInfo(path);
        myfileinf.Delete();

    }


}

}

Answer 6

System.IO.DirectoryInfo di = new DirectoryInfo("YourPath");

foreach (FileInfo file in di.GetFiles())
{
    file.Delete(); 
}
foreach (DirectoryInfo dir in di.GetDirectories())
{
    dir.Delete(true); 
}

---

If your directory may have many files, EnumerateFiles() is more efficient than GetFiles(), because when you use EnumerateFiles() you can start enumerating it before the whole collection is returned, as opposed to GetFiles() where you need to load the entire collection in memory before begin to enumerate it. See this quote here:

Therefore, when you are working with many files and directories, EnumerateFiles() can be more efficient.

The same applies to EnumerateDirectories() and GetDirectories(). So the code would be:

foreach (FileInfo file in di.EnumerateFiles())
{
    file.Delete(); 
}
foreach (DirectoryInfo dir in di.EnumerateDirectories())
{
    dir.Delete(true); 
}

For the purpose of this question, there is really no reason to use GetFiles() and GetDirectories().