regex - How can one delete files in a folder matching a regular expression using PowerShell?

Question

I know a common characteristic of the file names of a number of unwanted files on my Windows computer. How can I remove all of these files from a given folder or folder hierarchy with a single regular expression PowerShell command?

Answer 1

You can pipe a Get-ChildItem command through a Where-Object filter that accepts a RegEx pattern, and then pipe that into Remove-Item. I think that will get you a faster, and better result than using Select-String. With a command like:

Get-ChildItem $Path | Where{$_.Name -Match "<RegEx Pattern>"} | Remove-Item

The Name attribute will only match the name of the file or folder, along with a file's extension. It will not match against other things along the path. This will pass a FileInfo object down the pipe, which Remove-Item takes as piped input and will remove the files in question.

If you want to include sub folders of your path you would add the -Recurse switch to your Get-ChildItem command, and it would look like this:

Get-ChildItem $Path -Recurse | Where{$_.Name -Match "<RegEx Pattern>"} | Remove-Item

If you only want to delete files you can specify that in the Where statement by looking at the FileInfo object's PSIsContainer property and inverting it by prefixing the object with an exclamation point like such:

Get-ChildItem $Path -Recurse | Where{$_.Name -Match "<RegEx Pattern>" -and !$_.PSIsContainer} | Remove-Item