CMD: How do I delete all the contents of all directories (in the current directory) without deleting the directories themselves?

Question

For example:

I'm in the directory:

F:\Data

Inside this directory, I have four directories:

F:\Data>dir
22179 22915 23459 23460

These directories have various content, including directories and files. I'm trying to run something like:

rmdir /s *\*

where I delete all the contents of these numbered directories, while leaving the empty directories. Is there a one-liner that can do this, or do I have to loop through the sub-directories?

Answer 1

(for /d %A in (*) do @for /d %B in ("%A\*") do @rd /s /q "%~B")&del /s /q *.* >nul

It's a one liner - but I wouldn't call it simple. It loops through the 1st two levels of the tree, but everything deeper will be removed without more looping. If in a batch file then %A and %B become %%A and %%B

I wasn't sure if you wanted all files deleted from your root (F:\data in your case). The above will delete files found in your root.

If you want to preserve the files in root, then I think this should work (I didn't test this one)

for /d %A in (*) do @(@for /d %B in ("%A\*") do @rd /s /q "%~B")&@del /q "%A\*.* >nul

The @ symbols can be removed from both sets of code - they are just there to prevent each level of the command from being echoed.

Answer 2

Does DEL /S /Q *.* work for you?