How do I delete a folder which is nested quite deep and avoid "File name too long"?

Question

Eclipse created a temp folder in one of the directories which is nested quite deep, e.g.

dir1\dir1\dir1\dir1\...

I am unable to delete this folder in Windows via Explorer, the del or rmdir commands, nor the Cygwin 'rm' command. How should I remove this very long folder?

It just keeps saying "File name too long..."

Answer 1

If you are like me and don't like to install additional software to fix a problem like this, I'd go with XQYZ's suggestion and use robocopy to solve the problem. (In my case the problem was created by robocopy in the first place, by copying a directory which had recursive junction points in it without supplying /XJ to robocopy).

To delete the directory tree starting at c:\subdir\more\offending_dir:

The total step-by-step-process is as simple as this:

1. cd c:\subdir\more to cd into its parent directory.
2. mkdir empty to create an empty directory.
3. robocopy empty offending_dir /mir to mirror the empty directory into the offending one.
4. After some waiting you're done! Finish it up with:
5. rmdir offending_dir to get rid of the now empty offending directory and
6. rmdir empty to get rid of your intermediate empty directory.

Answer 2

This is actually quite simple to fix. Say that the directory structure is as such:

C:\Dir1\Dir1\Dir1\Dir1…

To fix it, just rename each folder to a one-character folder-name until it is no longer too long to delete:

1. Rename C:\Dir1 to C:\D
2. Navigate to C:\D\
3. Rename C:\D\Dir1 to C:\D\D
4. Navigate to C:\D\D\
5. Goto 1 until total length of path is <260

---

Here’s a batch file to automate the process (this simple version is best for simple directories like the one described in the question, especially for disposable ones). Pass it the highest folder possible (eg C:\Dir1 for C:\Dir1\Dir1\Dir1… or C:\Users\Bob\Desktop\New Folderfor C:\Users\Bob\Desktop\New Folder\abcdefghi…)

@echo off
if not (%1)==() cd %1
for /D %%i in (*) do if not %%i==_ ren "%%i" _
pushd _ 
%0 
popd

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Technical Explanation

The other proposed solutions are backwards; you can’t fix it by working your way from the innermost directory outward, you need to go in the other direction.

When you try to access a directory, you do so using its absolute path whether explicitly or not, which includes everything that came before it. Therefore, for a directory structure like C:\Dir1\Dir1\Dir1\Dir1, the length of the path to the innermost Dir1 is 22. However the length of the path to the outermost Dir1 is only 7, and therefore is still accessible regardless of its contents (in the context of a given directory’s path, the file-system has no knowledge of what it contains or the effect it has on the total path length of its child directories; only its ancestor directories—you cannot rename a directory if the total path-length will be too long).

Therefore, when you encounter a path that is too long, what you need to do is to go to the highest level possible and rename it to a one-character name and repeat for each level therein. Each time you do so, the total length of the path shortens by the difference between the old name and new name.

The opposite is true as well. You cannot create a path that is greater than the maximum supported length (on DOS and Windows, MAX_PATH = 260). However, you can rename directories, working from the innermost outward, to a longer name. The result is that deeper folders whose absolute path is >260 will be inaccessible. (That does not make them “hidden” or secure, since they are simple enough to get at, so don’t use this method to hide files.)

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Interesting Side Note

If you create folders in Windows 7 Explorer, it may seem like Explorer allows you to create subdirectories such that the total length is longer than MAX_PATH, and in effect it is, however it is actually cheating by using “DOS 8.3 filenames”. You can see this by creating a tree such as the following:

C:\abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ0123456789
   \abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ0123456789
    \abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ0123456789
     \abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ0123456789
      \abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ0123456789
       \abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ0123456789
        \abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ0123456789
         \abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ0123456789
          \abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ0123456789
           \abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ0123456789
            \abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ0123456789\

It is 696 characters long, which of course is much longer than 260. Further, if you navigate to the innermost subdirectory in Explorer, it shows it as expected in the address bar when it is not in focus, but when you click in the address bar, it changes the path to C:\ABCDEF~1\ABCDEF~1\ABCDEF~1\ABCDEF~1\ABCDEF~1\ABCDEF~1\ABCDEF~1\ABCDEF~1\ABCDEF~1\ABCDEF~1\ABCDEF~1\, which is only 102 characters long.

In XP, it does not do this, instead it steadfastly refuses to create a longer path than is supported.

What would really be interesting is to find out how Windows 7 Explorer handles “too-long paths” when the NtfsDisable8dot3NameCreation option is set.

Answer 3

You can shorten the path by using subst to create a virtual drive:

C:\>subst Z: "C:\TEMP\dir1\dir1\dir1\dir1\dir1\dir1\dir1\dir1\dir1\dir1\dir1\dir1\dir1"

Change into the virtual drive:

cd Z:

Now you can delete the files:

del *.*

Remove the virtual drive:

cd C:\TEMP
subst Z: /d

Remove the directory:

rd /s dir1

Answer 4

I wrote a small C# app to help me delete a similar very deep structure generated by a careless usage of Robocopy and a backup from Homeserver; by default Robocopy treats joint points as regular folders... :-( You might end up with a big mess without noticing it.

The tool is available at CodePlex with source files, for anyone to use.

http://deepremove.codeplex.com

Answer 5

Some time ago I created a small, self-contained utility executable called DeleteFiles that you can use to perform this task easily.

Using this self-contained, utility you can simply do:

deletefiles c:\yourfolder\subfolder\*.* -r -f

to delete the entire folder structure. -r recurses the folder hierarchy from the starting directory down, -f deletes any folders that are empty (which will be all of them if you use . as the filespec). DeleteFiles supports paths longer than the Windows MAX_PATH limit so it will work just fine on deeply nested folders.

DeleteFiles is free and open source and you can grab either the binary or source code from GitHub or install directly using Chocolatey

Answer 6

Simple & Easy Now

i was facing this same problem since so long with node_modules which very nested folders. so finally made a script to fix that which can delete folders by shortening paths.

https://github.com/dev-mraj/fdel

npm install fdel -g

fdel ./node_modules

Answer 7

While working with Sikuli I got jacked with a Calculator.sikuli recursion loop in the program that made an uncountable amount of "calculator.sikuli.calculator.sikuli" dirs. I could move the tree, but pathname too long to delete.

After trying several solutions with popd loop, Scandisk and getting (perceptibly) nowhere....

I wrote this script to 'go deep' into the recursed dirs(in a dir called 'a'), move them(to a dir called 'b'), then delete the truncated tree, move them back(to 'a'), and repeat:

1)cd D:\a\calculator.sikuli\calculator.sikuli\calculator.sikuli\calculator.sikuli
.............go deeeeeep in         dir *A*
2) move calculator.sikuli ---> D:\b    
.............move the crazy tree to dir *B*    
3) kill D:\a\calculator.sikuli <---KILL(rd)    
.............wipe dir *A*'s tree    
4) move D:\b\calculator.sikuli ---> D:\a\    
.............move the crazy tree back to dir *A*    
REPEAT

• REM Used to delete infinitely recursed subfolders
• REM suggest to stop Windows Search service first(services.msc)

Remdirs.bat

D:
cd D:\a\calculator.sikuli\calculator.sikuli\calculator.sikuli\calculator.sikuli
move /-Y calculator.sikuli D:\b
cd D:\b
rd /s/q D:\a\calculator.sikuli
move /-Y calculator.sikuli D:\a
call D:\remdirs2.bat

This is just a call to run the batch file again.

Answer 8

We had a problem like this at work when eclipse decided to create rubbish on the harddrives. We fixed it by using robocopy's /MIR function to mirror an empty directory into the nested one.

Answer 9

I had the same problem, except it was created by a recursive Cobian Backup task. I turns out the free Cobian software includes a Deleter application that can easily remove these pesky nested folders super quickly.

It's located under the tools menu.

Answer 10

I would try opening a command prompt and running:

rmdir /s <directory>

If that doesn't work, I'd cd partway into the directory tree and try to delete a subset of the directories -- say the 20 innermost directories -- and then work my way out from there.

Answer 11

If it is a network folder then just share that directory's parent directory and map it to a drive on your local machine and then delete your folder.

Answer 12

Open a command prompt.

Navigate to the folder/directory that contains the highest 'dir1' (we'll assume C:\)

c:\> RD /s dir1

Edit (after comments added):

Other ideas:

MS offers info on how to deal with the problem (lots of ideas to try) here.

There's also this tool (never used it personally) - TooLongPath.

Perhaps write something (since you have Eclipse) that navigates all the way in and then backs out one folder level at a time, deleting as it goes?

Answer 13

Another solution: go download Total Commander. It's a very useful program, not just because it's long filename aware.

The unregistered version is nagware but fully functional, it will do the job.

Answer 14

This can be done directly off the command line or in a batch file by constructing a UNC path to the directory you want to delete

so instead of

rmdir /s/q c:\mydirectory

use

rmdir /s/q \\?\c:\myDirectory

UNC-style paths like this can be much longer and bypass the 260-char limit.

Answer 15

When I have this problem I simply rename some of the folder names much shorter, then once the total path is short enough, it'll delete OK. No extra tools needed.

Answer 16

I did run into the same issue with a 5000+ directory-deep folder mess that some Java application did and I wrote a program that will help you remove this folder. The whole source code is in this link:

https://gitlab.imanolbarba.net/imanol/DiREKT

It removed the whole thing after a while, but it managed to do the job, I hope it helps people who (as I), run into the same frustrating issue

Answer 17

Your filesystem may be corrupt. Run chkdsk to see if it repairs anything, then try deleting the folder.