How to delete empty files directories in Unix Linux

Deleting empty file and directory in Unix

Many times we need to find and delete empty files or directories in UNIX/Linux. Since there is no single command in Unix/Linux which allows you to remove empty files or empty directories rather we need to rely on find command and xargs command. In this UNIX and linux example we will see How to delete empty files and directories. Before removing empty files and directories we need to find those files and there are lots of option available to search for empty directories like find, grep , awk etc. You just need to know correct option. Like in any other operating system empty files and directories in Unix are those whose size is zero. Empty files doesn't contains any content while empty directories does not contain anything at all e.g files or sub-directories. As discussed in previous post 10 frequently used  find command examples we can also use find command to search and delete empty files and directories as it provides searching files based on size as well.

Creating Empty files and directories in Unix

let's first create empty file and directory to demonstrate example of how to delete empty files in Unix. We can use same set of commands which we have used in our example of How to find size of files and directories in Unix.

//This will create empty file in current directory

test@localhost:~/unix touch empty.txt          

//This will create empty directory inside current directory
test@localhost:~/unix mkdir empty_dir    

//This command will find all empty files and directories in Unix
test@localhost:~/unix find . -empty          
./empty.txt
./empty_dir

Searching Empty Files and Directory in Unix/Linux

find -empty option prints both empty files and directories. If you just want to print files than use -type f option and -type d for listing empty directories. its quite flexible. You can also use grep command along with ls –lrt to display empty files and directories as shown below :

//this command will print empty files

test@localhost:~/unix find . -type f -empty
./empty.txt

//this command will print empty directories
test@localhost:~/unix find  . -type d -empty
./empty_dir

//How to use grep command to print empty files and directories
test@localhost:~/unix ls -ltr | grep '\<0\>'
drwxr-xr-x+ 1 test Domain Users   0 Jun 15 11:43 empty_dir/
-rw-r--r--  1 test Domain Users   0 Jun 15 11:44 empty.txt

//find command to print empty files and directories
test@localhost:~/unix find . -maxdepth 1  -size 0 -ls
90353467524120775    0 drwxr-xr-x   1 test Domain Users        0 Jun 15 11:43 .
9007199255261921     0 -rw-r--r--   1 test Domain Users        0 Jun 15 11:44 ./empty.txt
19421773393554899    0 drwxr-xr-x   1 test Domain Users        0 Jun 15 11:43 ./empty_dir

Deleting Empty Files and  Directories in Unix Linux

Now once we certain that there are empty files and directory exists you can delete them by using find -delete option or executing rm command in combination with find command as shown below:

//removing Empty files and directories using find command

test@localhost:~/unix find . -empty -delete

test@localhost:~/unix find . -empty -delete

test@localhost:~/unix ls -lrt
total 1.0K
-rw-r--r-- 1 test Domain Users 118 Aug  4  2011 contacts.txt

//using find and xargs command to remove empty files and directories
test@localhost:~/unix find . -empty | xargs rm -r

test@localhost:~/unix find . -empty -type d -exec rm -r {} \;
find: `./empty_dir': Not a directory

That’s all on How to find and remove empty files and directories in Unix and Linux host. As I mentioned there are many ways to find empty files and directory but best way is by using find command, which not only list empty files but empty directories as well.

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