How about deleting or flagging empty directories?

[Guest Keatah]

How about deleting or flagging empty directories? Yep, I understand that killing directories, even if 100% empty, can break a program. So why not have CCleaner highlight or bring-to-your-attention directories that contain zero files.

 

There was one time I worked on a system that had close to 700 stray directories that were empty. This was back in the day of 486's and Pentium 60's. There was a noticeable speed improvement then. Today, it would be a matter of tidiness.

[Augeas]

My worry about this is:

 

'I ran this directory clean thing and now some of my programs don't work!'

 

It's perhaps better to leave this to the many specialised directory cleaners, which are likely to be used by the more savvy users.

[Roland GINEYS]

Hi,

 

 

Delete empty directory seems to me dangerous because we do not know if it is empty all the time.

 

A directory can contain hidden files or system files that are usually invisible.

A directory can contain a file system that there are only a few times as some Perlib_Perfdata_xxx.dat.

 

Best regards

 

R G

[hazelnut]

Not really in favour of this suggestion for the reasons posted above.

[Super Fast]

While I would totally love this feature (highlight empty directories) as what you say is true... Sometimes there are tons of empty dir that are empty, & flagging them instead of deleting them would be a terrific feature for someone like me.

 

The problem isn't that you or I would misuse it, but they are concerned that other people may be less savy than we, & end up hosing a system because they deleted the wrong thing.

 

But so far as how I like it personally, I love it! If not for other users, I would love to have this...

 

Great idea! Only problem with it is, other users may misuse it & cause problems...

People who saw tons of empty dir might try to delete them all.

[Guest Keatah]

I can see all that. It is important to note that most of today's software will recreate a missing folder and thus not causing a problem. But who's to say that's the case for everything?

 

So a 3rd party empty directory nuker or something seems to be in order. I'm sure I'll find something.

 

I'm interested in this, because, there are times when an empty directory can be a clue to other improperly uninstalled stuff. An empty folder in the C:\Program Files might be a leftover. And it might also have companion folders in C:\Documents and Settings\%profile%. So for me it's more an investigation tool.

[nodles]

There is Remove Empty Directories ("RED"), but gotta be careful with that even though it has settings to skip system directories etc.