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).
- 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
- 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
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
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.
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)
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
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.