Delete specific folders using recursion

Introduction

This article gives idea how to use recursion to delete specific directory inside a root directory.

Using the code

DeleteBinAndObj is the method used to delete all bin and obj folders inside ..Projects folder.

DeleteBinAndObj(@"C:\Users\Documents\Visual Studio 2010\Projects"); 

It gets the current folder info using System.IO.DirectoryInfo class and also keeps the information of sub-directories inside it in an array System.IO.DirectoryInfo[]. If there are any sub directories then the method call itself (recursion) by passing the current sub directory.

foreach (DirectoryInfo myItem in subfolders)
               DeleteBinAndObj(myItem.FullName); 

If there are no sub directories then the current directory name will be compared with the specific string and if it matches the current directory is deleted using Directory.Delete method

if(rootFolder.Name.Equals("bin") || rootFolder.Name.Equals("Bin") || rootFolder.Name.Equals("BIN")
||rootFolder.Name.Equals("obj") || rootFolder.Name.Equals("Obj") || rootFolder.Name.Equals("OBJ"))
     Directory.Delete(rootFolder.FullName, true); 

If a file inside a directory does not have enough permission to delete then the directory will not be deleted and Directory.Delete(...) method throws exception. So you can use a try-catch block to handle this situation.

try
{
    Directory.Delete(rootFolder.FullName, true);
        /// here you can log the deleted file FullName.
}
catch
{                    
    /// Access denied for few of the files inside the directory.
        return;
}   

The final code would look like this,

using System.IO;
namespace DeleteFolder
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            DeleteBinAndObj(@"C:\Users\Documents\Visual Studio 2010\Projects");
        }
        private static void DeleteBinAndObj(string rootPath)
        {
            DirectoryInfo rootFolder = new DirectoryInfo(rootPath);
            DirectoryInfo[] subfolders = rootFolder.GetDirectories();            
                        
            foreach (DirectoryInfo myItem in subfolders)
                DeleteBinAndObj(myItem.FullName);
            //delete the specific folder
            if (rootFolder.Name.Equals("bin") || rootFolder.Name.Equals("Bin") || rootFolder.Name.Equals("BIN") ||
                    rootFolder.Name.Equals("obj") || rootFolder.Name.Equals("Obj") || rootFolder.Name.Equals("OBJ"))
            {
                try
                {
                    Directory.Delete(rootFolder.FullName, true);
                    /// here you can log the deleted file FullName.
                }
                catch
                {                    
                    /// Access denied for few of the files inside the directory.
                    return;
                }
            }
        }
    }
}