Remove Empty Directories

RED finds, displays, and deletes empty directories recursively below a given start folder. Furthermore, it allows you to create custom rules for keeping and deleting folders (e.g. treat directories with empty files as empty).

Features

• Simple user interface
• Shows empty directories before deleting them
• Supports multiple delete modes (including Delete to recycle bin)
• Allows white and blacklisting of directories by using filter lists
• Can detect directories with empty files as empty

System requirements

• Windows 7 or 10
  • Version 2.2 should also still work with older Windows versions like XP or Vista
• Microsoft .NET Framework 4.6.2 or later
  • The installer checks for the right version and installs it if missing

How to contribute to the project

You are very welcome to contribute code, translations, or anything else :)

Here are some tasks you can help with:

• Look at open issues/bugs and try to fix them
• Fix typos and general wording
• Optimize user interface
• Create a strategy/foundation for translations, are there any existing frameworks/concepts?
• Add unit tests

History

The first version of RED was created by Jonas John around 2005.

Since then a small team of contributors helped to fix bugs and add new features.

Changelog

2.3

• Disabled settings during active search or deletion process
• Refactored the interface to improve the design and usability
  • Divided packed settings tab into three separate tabs
  • Renamed some options and captions to make more sense
  • Added more descriptions and examples to explain settings
  • Increased default window size and added more whitespace to make it look less crowded
• Optimized config defaults
  • Set pause between deletions to zero because the default delete to recycle bin method is slow enough to not overwhelm the GUI
  • Deleted some unnecessary entries and updated some values
  • Removed *.tmp as default pattern to make the default settings safer because those files could still contain valuable data in some cases.
• Long paths support and other improvements (contributed by gioccher, see #5)
  • Fix crash due to case sensitivity of paths
  • Speed up crawl and deletion by disabling UI updates (dubbed fast mode)
  • Long path support by switching to AlphaFS
  • And more minor improvements (see closed pull request #5 for details)
• Ignore folders newer than N hours #3 (contributed by jsytniak, see #3)

2.2

• Improved error handling
• Added logging of errors and deleted directories
• Added multiple delete modes (e.g. delete to recycle bin)
• Implemented a function to delete a single empty directory
• Implemented optional function to detect paths in clipboard
• Infinite loop detection
• Added a few new configuration settings
• Removed counting method to increase speed
• Replaced old custom settings module with the default settings framework of .NET to be more standard-compliant (This should fix problems some users had when starting RED)

2.1

• Implemented a "Protect" and "Unprotect" function to let the user choose folders to keep
• Implemented an update button for a fast update check

2.0

• Created the installer (using NSIS)
• Updated this readme file

1.9

• Added better-looking icons to the GUI
• Corrected and updates some texts

1.8

• Finished the main parts of the application
• Added XML configuration file

1.7

• Removed some main parts of the new application and started using the "BackgroundWorker" for threading support.

1.6

• Finished the first prototype of the C# version

1.5

• Started the development of an entirely new version of RED by using Microsoft Visual C# (.NET 2.0)

1.4

• Updated the readme and changed the license from GPL to LGPL
• fixed some small issues

1.2

• Fixed the gauge in the process window
• implemented a second safety check to prevent deleting filled folders

1.1

• renamed the program to RED (Remove empty directories)
• made a new icon

1.0

• changes some structure things, renamed functions, renamed variables
• corrected code, fixed some issues...
• optional logfile implemented
• other minor changes
• updated version history -> complete rewrite ;)

0.9

• Added a readme, the licenses
• Translated the readme into English

0.8

• Cleaned the directories and sorted the files
• Renamed some functions and variables, to make it look better

0.6 + 0.7

• I learned about WinBinder (A native Windows binding for PHP) and converted the program to PHP with a Windows GUI using WinBinder

0.5

• Used NSIS Install System (http://nsis.sourceforge.net/) to create a GUI for the perl script

0.2 - 0.4

• Minor changes
• Added filters to exclude some folders like the recycler

0.1

• I made a simple perl script to delete empty folders, I called it "DEF" (Delete Empty Folders)

Credits

Third-party components

• File system calls are powered by the AlphaFS library
• The Installer is made by using Inno Setup & Inno Setup Dependency Installer

Icon sources

• Nuvola icons (GNU LGPL 2.1. license)
• NuoveXT icons (GPL license)
• famfamfam silk icons (Creative Commons Attribution license)
• Coffee icon by Ivan Freaner
• Ignore list icon taken from "Primo Icon Set" made by Webdesigner Depot
  • License: Free of charge for personal or commercial purposes

License

RED is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.