Best way to delete over 2 mm files?

[AndyD]

I had no idea an app (epg123)  had created so many files in it's cached folder.   It's over 2mm files.

 

The problem with the files is that it I didn't realize File History Backup was enabled on my HTPC back to my home server.  I now have these files duplicated across my pool of drives. 

 

I tried using rmdir first without realizing that the there were that many files within this sub directory.  That was several hours ago.   Is there any way I can get out of this mess?

[farmeunit]

Click on a file in that directory.  Use CTRL+A to select all.  Hold Shift or CTRL (I don't remember which, so I hold them both).  Then right-click and delete.

[AndyD]

I'm not sure if that's going to do it.  Any type of process via Windows took a considerable amount of time.   Hell, it took over 10 minutes just to get the count. 

 

I'd prefer a cmd prompt way which is why I thought rmdir would do it but I'm not sure how quickly it's deleting either.  They are very small files so I can only imagine the amount of thrashing occuring

[AndyD]

I estimated how long it will take to delete the files using that cmd - since I've posted, it looks like 200,000 files have been deleted.   So about 5 hours.   Oh well, I guess I'll check in the morning.

[Eric Veteran]

"rd /s" will bypass the recycle bin and Explorer calculations at least. It's still going to take a while.

[AndyD]

Just now, Eric said:

"rd /s" will bypass the recycle bin and Explorer calculations at least. It's still going to take a while.

Ok thanks.  I'll just wait it out then.

[philcruicks]

You could try PowerShell, as it's 64bit and more modern it might run faster, but any way you work it it's gonna take a fair bit of time.

 

Remove-Item c:\directory\* -recurse

Is the command (-recurse will delete all child items as well).

[AndyD]

Ah thanks.  This is behind me now.   Just left it deleting over night 

[philcruicks]

Yeh, figgured it might have finished overnight, but if it ever happens again you've got another potential option  haha

[+Warwagon MVC]

For future reference, this is what I use.

 

There was a temporary internet file folder one time that had 3 million files. So I looked online and found this

 

del /f/s/q content.ie5 > nul 

 

Replace content.ie5 with whatever folder you want to delete the contents of

[oldtimefighter]

On 1/22/2017 at 10:33 PM, AndyD said:

I had no idea an app (epg123)  had created so many files in it's cached folder.   It's over 2mm files.

what unit of measurement is mm (besides millimeter)? LOL

[goretsky Supervisor]

Hello,

 

I have seen it used as an abbreviation for million or millions, most often used by people in the publishing, marketing or public relations area.  As far as measurements, there's megameter for distances, which is abbreviated as Mm and is 1,000km, and millimolars for concentrations, which is abbreviated as mM and is 0.001 molars.  In the fabric industry, there's mommes for weighing silk, which is abbreviated as mm.  M.M. is also used as an abbreviation for Metro Manila, the capital (and surrounding suburbs) of the Philippines, so if someone were talking about M.M.'s population or territory, it could be used as a value in that context.  For example:  Both M.M. and L.A.¹ have populations of about 12.8 million people.

 

Regards,

 

Aryeh Goretsky

¹The Greater Los Angeles Metropolitan Area.

 

20 hours ago, oldtimefighter said:

what unit of measurement is mm (besides millimeter)? LOL

 

[PsYcHoKiLLa]

20 hours ago, oldtimefighter said:

what unit of measurement is mm (besides millimeter)? LOL

That's what I was thinking too.

[AndyD]

Thanks for the other methods guys!

 

mm - is used quite frequently in Finance to represent millions

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Million

 

"One million (1,000,000) or one thousand thousand is the natural number following 999,999 and preceding 1,000,001. The word is derived from the early Italian millione (milione in modern Italian), from mille, "thousand", plus the augmentative suffix -one.[1] It is commonly abbreviated as m[2][3][4] or M;[5][6] further MM ("thousand thousands", from Latin "Mille"; not to be confused with the Roman numeral MM = 2,000), mm, or mn in financial contexts."