Make a list of empty folders

Hi

I want to make a spreadsheet of (the full path statements of) all empty folders on a drive (external, USB). I have googled and found 4 or 5 suggestions on how to do this, but couldn't get any of them to work.

- - -

Alternatively, some kind of DIR statement that gives the Path statements (of folders, not files) suffixed with EITHER the Number-of-Files OR the Size-in-KB for each folder. Those two/three fields preferably on the same line, with some kind of delineator, so I can dump it into a spreadsheet and filter out anything non-zero. e.g.

E:\First Level, Folder 1\Second Level, Folder 1\ 246 56KB
E:\First Level, Folder 1\Second Level, Folder 2\ 97,843 1,864KB
E:\First Level, Folder 1\Second Level, Folder 3\ 0 0KB

Karen's Directory Printer utility would usually do this, but it bombs-out if the task is too big.

I am aware that there are utilities that will find and delete folders, but I haven't found one that will output a list.

Windows 10 Home, latest.

Yes, that seems to work nicely, thanks for the sleuthing ! I think I've seen that page, but didn't see the 'Save checked paths to text file' part.

Hmm

Seems I spoke too soon. EmptyFolderNuker is fine for smaller samples, but when the number of empty folders gets into the hundreds, then the text-export fails and only prints the first ten lines

Any other thoughts/suggestions welcome, thanks :)

I think I can do batch script that shows all "Empty Folders" but I don't know what your expectations are.

For example if you have:

Parent Folder \ Empty Subfolder 1 \ Empty Subfolder 2 \ Empty Subfolder 3 \ Empty Subfolder 4

Only "Empty Subfolder 4" would be really Empty because if a folder has a subfolder in it, it can not be empty, only the last subfolder in a chain of subfolders can be "really empty" got what I mean?

So here is the question are you looking for a way to "see all empty folders" or "All folders that only have empty Subfolders"?

It seems Windows 10 saves as UTF-8 by default. Let me know of any bugs...

Code:

@echo off
chcp 1252 > Nul
Title Find Empty Folders
setlocal EnableDelayedExpansion

IF /i exist "%~1" (set "CAtual=%~1") else (set "CAtual=%~dp0")

:Inicio

cls
echo.
echo What would you like to do?
echo.
echo  1. Delete Empty Subfolders
echo.
echo  2. Show Empty Folders
echo.
echo  3. Show Folders that only have Empty Subfolders
echo.
echo  4. Exit
echo.
echo.
set /p "Resposta=Answer: 1 / 2 / 3 / 4: "

if /i "%Resposta%"=="1" goto :Opcao1
if /i "%Resposta%"=="2" goto :Opcao2
if /i "%Resposta%"=="3" goto :Opcao3
if /i "%Resposta%"=="4" goto :Opcao4

:Opcao1
cls
echo.
echo  Specify a path or press Enter to use current path: 
echo.
echo Current Path: %CAtual%
echo.
set /p "Caminho=Path: "
set Caminho=%Caminho:"=%
if not Defined Caminho (set "Caminho=%CAtual%") else (set "CAtual=%Caminho%")

echo.
for /f "Delims=" %%a in ('dir /b /ad /s "%Caminho%" ^|sort /r') do dir /a /b "%%a" | Find /i /v ""> Nul 2>&1 || Rd "%%a"
goto :Inicio

:Opcao2
cls
echo.
echo  Specify a path or press Enter to use current path: 
echo.
echo Current Path: !CAtual!
echo.
set /p "Caminho=Path: "
set Caminho=%Caminho:"=%

if not Defined Caminho (set "Caminho=%CAtual%") else (set "CAtual=%Caminho%")

echo Empty Folders:>Empty.txt
echo.>>Empty.txt
for /f "Delims=" %%a in ('dir /b /ad /s "%Caminho%" ^|sort /r') do dir /a /b "%%a" | Find /i /v "" 1> Nul 2> nul || echo %%a>>"Empty.txt"
notepad "Empty.txt"
goto :Inicio

:Opcao3
cls	
echo.
echo  Specify a path or press Enter to use current path: 
echo.
echo Current Path: %CAtual%
echo.
set /p "Caminho=Path: "
set Caminho=%Caminho:"=%
if not Defined Caminho (set "Caminho=%CAtual%") else (set "CAtual=%Caminho%")

echo Folders With Files:>FoldersWithFiles.txt
echo.>>FoldersWithFiles.txt
echo Folders With Empty Subfolders:>EmptySub.txt
echo.>>EmptySub.txt
for /f "Delims=" %%a in ('dir /b /a:-d /s "%Caminho%"') do find "%%~dpa" FoldersWithFiles.txt 2> nul 1> nul || >> FoldersWithFiles.txt echo %%~dpa
for /f "Delims=" %%a in ('dir /b /a:d /s "%Caminho%"') do Find "%%a\" FoldersWithFiles.txt 2> nul 1> nul || >> EmptySub.txt echo/%%a
notepad EmptySub.txt
goto :Inicio

:Opcao4
exit

Thanks for this it is awesome - especially the high speed and the friendly UI !

There is a problem with rendering the unicode characters tho'.
A path
d:\test\1\2\3 (all 'empty' folders, no files)
...gets reported fine, but the same thing in asian languages, e.g.

D:\test\๑\๒\๓
D:\test\၁\၂\၃
D:\test\一\二\三

...all get reported as D:\test\?\?\?

This is true even when having added 'cmd.exe /u /c' at the start of the code, as you suggest for other OSs. (I am using Windows 10)

Your outputted text files are marked as being UTF-8, but the unicode characters are not rendered correctly.

====

by way of diagnostics

if I open a regular command line window and run
dir /s /b >0FilesAndFoldersList.txt
.. the resulting file shows
D:\test\1
D:\test\?
D:\test\?
D:\test\?
D:\test\1\2
D:\test\1\2\3
D:\test\?\?
D:\test\?\?\?
D:\test\?\?
D:\test\?\?\?
D:\test\?\?
D:\test\?\?\?
The text file is marked as being UTF-8

however, if I run
cmd.exe /u
dir /s /b >0FilesAndFoldersList.txt
.. the file renders the characters correctly, saying:
D:\test\1
D:\test\๑
D:\test\၁
D:\test\一
D:\test\1\2
D:\test\1\2\3
D:\test\๑\๒
D:\test\๑\๒\๓
D:\test\၁\၂
D:\test\၁\၂\၃
D:\test\一\二
D:\test\一\二\三
The text file is marked as UTF 16-LE
If I Save-As that textfile to UTF-8, there is no change in its appearance - the characters get rendered just fine in the UTF-8 version.

(In all cases, the on-screen console window displays the unicode characters as question marks (which is fine, it is the text files I am interested in)).

/Not sure if that helps with debugging. It would be great if you could get it to render the Asian characters.

So difficult with native Windows tools.
So easy with Linux:

Code:

du | grep "^0"

If you install the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) you get all Linux capabilities whilst keeping Windows intact.
Or install Cygwin, with similar capabitilites.
Both are free.