How To Remove Empty Files & Folders In Windows 10 PC?

Computer Maintenance is an important task that is growing popular these days. Many people have started to realize that the computer is not a one-time long-use thing but rather can be used for years to come if it is properly maintained. There are many aspects of Computer Maintenance like:

1. Removing Malware & Other Potential Threats

2. Deleting Junk & Temporary Files

3. Exterminating Empty Files & Folders

4. Maintaining privacy by removing traces, if any

5. Uninstalling redundant applications

6. Eliminating Large & Old Files

In this article, we are focusing on one particular aspect of optimizing the computer and that is to remove the empty folders and files from your PC.

What Are Empty Files & Folders Why Do They Accumulate In Our PC?

As the name suggests, Empty Files And Empty Folders do not contain any valuable data or anything at all. They are empty and hence do not consume any amount of storage space as well. However, they are taken into account when your Operating System searches for any file or folder. This increases the time taken to retrieve the required file and hence slows down the computer’s performance. A handful of empty files and folders will not make any difference but when this number reaches thousands, you will find that the computer’s speed has been affected.

Empty Files and Folders are generally created by the operating system and applications to store temporary information or use them later. However, most of the temp files created are not deleted after they have served their purpose and this is one of the major reasons for the accumulation of empty folders and files.

Is It Harmful To Remove Empty Files And Folders?

There are two viewpoints when it comes to removing empty files and folders from your PC, some experts are against this step while many others state that it would make no difference but rather increase the indexing speed as they would be lesser files and folders to handle. Another interesting fact about these empty files and folders is that if they are required after you delete them, they would be recreated by the operating system or the application when launched.

One of the advantages of removing empty files and folders is that it helps to better organize your data stored in the computer. With empty folders and files out of the way, Windows indexing can be facilitated faster and efficiently. This takes less time to search files and improves the overall speed of the running applications and the computer itself.

Another important point to consider is that even though all the empty files and folders occupy 0 bytes of storage space, removing them might not be easy. Certain system-generated folders would recreate each time you reboot your computer.

However, while deleting any such folder, if you get a warning prompt or require administrator permission, then it is best to leave these folders alone. You should not attempt deleting them by force or tweak your way through it. However, if such folders belong to programs that have been uninstalled then you can go ahead and remove them.

How To Remove Empty Folders & Empty Files From Windows 10 PC?

There are many applications including Windows Disk Cleanup that can remove junk and temporary files from your computer. But these apps do not consider empty folders and files as junk and hence do not delete them. Here is a dedicated tool that can help you to remove empty folders and files from your system.

Step 1: Download and Install Freeware Ashisoft Empty Folders and Files Finder.

Step 2: After installation, launch the app open.

Step 3: Next, Click on Add Path to select the drive or folder you wish to scan.

Step 4: Then click on the Scan Now button.

Step 5: After the scan is complete, the empty files and folders will be listed in separate tabs.

Step 6: Click Mark all Folders and finally click on Delete Folders.

Step 7: Follow the same steps for removing empty files from your computer by marking them first and then deleting them.

Now that was an easy and highly recommended method as it saved all the time and effort and it was done free of cost.

The Final Verdict On How To Remove Empty Files & Folders In Windows 10 PC

The processing of removing empty folders and files from your computer is rather quite easy and can be carried out by anyone using the PC. Although there is no major harm in letting the empty files and folders stay on your system, there are certain minor benefits of deleting them.  It would help to organize your data by removing unwanted data and at the same time increase the file processing speed as there are lesser files and folders to scan through.

For any queries or suggestions, please let us know in the comments section below. We would love to get back to you with a solution. We regularly post tips and tricks, along with answers to common issues related to technology.