How to loop through all subfolders in a directory, and remove files with a specific filename

Question

I am trying to write a script in Powershell to remove some files automatically with a certain file name.

My idea is to get all the folders in the directory, then loop through the subdirectory, and remove all items with the file name, but it doesn't seem to be working as expected.

Here is my script


$folders = Get-ChildItem -path "C:\Website-Backup" -Recurse | Where-Object {$_.PsIsContainer} |Group-Object {$_.FullName.Split('_')[0] }
$subfolders = Get-ChildItem -path $folders -Recurse | Where-Object {$_.PsIsContainer} | Group-Object {$_.FullName.Split('_')[0] }

ForEach($subfolder in $subfolders)
{
    Remove-Item * -Include *100x*
}

Any idea why the script doesn't seem to be doing anything?

Itchydon · Accepted Answer · 2021-08-05 16:26:50Z

2

I think you can simplify your code if I understand correctly to:

Get-ChildItem "C:\Website-Backup" -Recurse  -include "*100x*" -file | remove-item

edited Aug 5, 2021 at 16:26

answered Aug 5, 2021 at 16:19

Itchydon

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Comments

elkenyo · Accepted Answer · 2021-08-05 12:53:20Z

The Group-Object command is likely what's confusing things here - Remove-Item is expecting a path - you're not referencing the subfolder variable in your loop as well, so this is the same as just running the Remove-Item command as many times as there are items in the array.

You can try this instead;

Get-ChildItem -Path "C:\Website-Backup" -Recurse | Where-Object -FilterScript { $_.name -like 'MyFile.txt' } | Remove-Item

This will pipe the returned child items into Where-Object, filter it to the specified file name, then pass that to Remove-Item as a file path.

You can also skip the Where-Object, but you lose a bit of control this way;

Get-ChildItem -Path 'C:\WebSiteBackup\*MyFile.txt' -Recurse | Remove-Item

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