How to delete a temporary internet files folder with over 1 million files.

[+Warwagon MVC]

As of recent I've been seeing some PC's with internet temporary file folders (\appdata\local\microsoft\windows\temporary internet files\low\content.ie5 that contain over 1 Million files totaling sometimes as high as 60GB.

 

Using CCleaner is out of the question because even when there aren't that many files, deleting them by hand is usually faster. I've always found, at least for temp internet files ccleaner to be slow.

 

Selecting the files and pressing delete is still pretty slow, as it has to prepare them before it deletes them. You could use the Shift + Delete to delete with out recycling them first, but it still has to prepare the files. So upon looking online for a faster solution I found the following command line option.

 

Step 1 : Open CMD with admin privileges

Step 2: Navigate to c:\users\(username)appdata\local\microsoft\windows\temporary internet files\low\

Step 3: Type  del /f/s/q content.ie5 > nul

Step 4: Press enter

 

While this still will take some time to complete, it's a lot faster than holding down shift and pressing delete and no comparisonly faster than using CCleaner. (I would not be surprised if it were to take CCleaner 24+ Hours to delete)

 

Once finished the folders will still be inside content.ie5. So just open the directory and delete the empty folders or run ccleaner to do it for you.

 

If you can do this from inside a bartpe environment  the entire processes is even faster still.

 

Hope this helps

[Phouchg]

The mighty CMD will never die! :laugh:

 

I've always wonderered, though, what's there to "prepare" for when deleting large number of files? Incoming disaster?

[+Thayios Subscriber²]

Turn the IE history to 7 days and the file size will stay smaller. For whatever reason they changed it to ignore the file size limitation and to use the history date hold for storage limitations.

[FiB3R]

Computer > Right click on C: > Properties > Disc Clean-Up?

[Eric Veteran]

Why not just use the feature to delete temporary files in Internet Options?

[+Warwagon MVC]

Why not just use the feature to delete temporary files in Internet Options?

 

here is a post from a website

 

 

I regularly need to delete lots of files and directories from a WinXP encrypted drive, typically around 22 GB of 500,000 files in 45,000 folders.

Deleting with Windows Explorer is rubbish because it wastes lots of time enumerating the files. I usually move the stuff I need to delete to C:\stufftodelete and have a deletestuff.bat batch file to rmdir /s/q C:\stufftodelete. This is scheduled to run at night, but sometimes I need to run it during the day so the quicker the better.

Here's the results of a quick time test of a small 5.85 MB sample of 960 files in 303 folders. I ran method 1 followed by method 2, then reset the test directories.

Method 1 removes the files and directory structure in one pass:

rmdir /s/q foldername

Method 2 has a first pass to delete files and outputs to nul to avoid the overhead of writing to screen for every singe file. A second pass then cleans up the remaining directory structure:

del /f/s/q foldername > nul

rmdir /s/q foldername

    Method 1: 17.5s, 14.9s, 13.9s, 14.8s, 13.8s: average 14.98 seconds

    Method 2: 14.3s, 12.1s, 11.7s, 14.2s, 11.8s: average 12.82 seconds

Here's results of another test using 404 MB of 19,521 files in 3,243 folders:

    Method 1: 2 minutes 20 seconds

    Method 2: 2 minutes 33 seconds

So there's not much in it, probably too close to judge on a single test.

Edit: I've retested with much more data, this is a typical case for me: 28.3 GB of 1,159,211 files in 146,918 folders:

    Method 1: 2h 15m, 2h 34m: average: 2 hours 25 minutes

    Method 2: 49m, 57m: average: 53 minutes

Wow, method 2 is nearly three times faster than method 1! I'll be updating my deletestuff.bat!

 

I'm pretty sure this command line option would be faster than hitting the delete temp file button. This is only for the extreme case of over a million files.

 

http://superuser.com/questions/19762/mass-deleting-files-in-windows/289399#289399

[Sir Topham Hatt]

Or just leave it overnight to finish?

Still, I am sure someone will find use for this (Y)

[Salutary7]

I once tried to delete a huge temporary internet files folder in Win98 and it froze the PC for hours. When I rebooted I found out the OS became corrupted.

[+Warwagon MVC]

I once tried to delete a huge temporary internet files folder in Win98 and it froze the PC for hours. When I rebooted I found out the OS became corrupted.

 

Hate it when that happens! :D