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Linux find empty directories and files

 How to find or identify empty directories or files in Linux?

It can be done easily with find command itself.

Here's the syntax and how to test.

mkdir test_empty

cd test_empty

create some dummy directories:

mkdir {dummydir1,dummydir2,dummydir3}

then create some empty files:

touch {file1empty,file2empty,file3empty}

To find empty directories:

find . -type d -empty

To find empty files:

find . -type f -empty

All directories and files will be shown since they are empty.

Add some text to the file:

echo "Test" > file1empty

Run again the command:

find . -type f -empty

file1empty will not be on the list since the file has some text.

Move the file1empty to dummydir1.

mv file1empty dummydir1

Run the command to find empty directories:

find . -type d -empty

dummydir1 will not be displayed since file1empty is inside of it.


How to remove or delete empty directories or files?

In production or any environment, make sure you know what you are doing.

In a testing environment, it can be done like this:

find . -type d -empty -exec rmdir  {} \;  2>/dev/null

To delete empty files:

find . -type f -empty -exec rm  {} \;

Above can be put to crontab to schedule and auto delete empty files and directories, however, do it sensibly.


That's it..till next time..




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