Locate Empty Directories from Command Line

By  on  

As a software engineer that lives too much of his life on a computer, I like keeping my machine as clean as possible. I don't keep rogue downloaded files and removes apps when I don't need them. Part of keeping a clean, performant system is removing empty directories.

To identify empty directories, I use the following command:

find . -type d --empty

To remove empty directories, we can add a --delete flag:

find . -type d --empty --delete

Keeping a clean machine is easy when you know the tools that can help you. find makes identifying and eliminating easy, so don't be afraid to use it!

Recent Features

  • By
    5 Ways that CSS and JavaScript Interact That You May Not Know About

    CSS and JavaScript:  the lines seemingly get blurred by each browser release.  They have always done a very different job but in the end they are both front-end technologies so they need do need to work closely.  We have our .js files and our .css, but...

  • By
    Conquering Impostor Syndrome

    Two years ago I documented my struggles with Imposter Syndrome and the response was immense.  I received messages of support and commiseration from new web developers, veteran engineers, and even persons of all experience levels in other professions.  I've even caught myself reading the post...

Incredible Demos

  • By
    CSS @supports

    Feature detection via JavaScript is a client side best practice and for all the right reasons, but unfortunately that same functionality hasn't been available within CSS.  What we end up doing is repeating the same properties multiple times with each browser prefix.  Yuck.  Another thing we...

  • By
    Create a Dynamic Table of Contents Using MooTools 1.2

    You've probably noticed that I shy away from writing really long articles. Here are a few reasons why: Most site visitors are coming from Google and just want a straight to the point, bail-me-out ASAP answer to a question. I've noticed that I have a hard time...

Discussion

  1. Jim L

    A minor change as it should have a single ‘-‘ on the empty predicate:

    find . -type d -empty

Wrap your code in <pre class="{language}"></pre> tags, link to a GitHub gist, JSFiddle fiddle, or CodePen pen to embed!