How to Delete Zero-Sized Files Using Shell Script

Write a shell script to remove the zero sized file from the current directory.

In this article, you will discover 3 methods for writing a shell script that locates and deletes zero-sized files in the current directory. All three approaches share two common steps: firstly, clearing the terminal using the clear command, and secondly, displaying a relevant message to confirm the successful deletion of files to the user.

Method 1: find -size 0c -delete

clear
find -size 0c -delete
echo "All zero-sized files successfully deleted"

As you can see in the above script, find -size 0c -delete uses the find utility to search for files in the current directory (represented by .).

-size 0c specifies the size criteria for the files to be searched. Here, 0c means files with a size of 0 bytes (0 for size and c for bytes). So, it searches for files with a size of 0 bytes.

The -delete flag instructs find to delete the files that match the specified criteria.

Method 2: find . -type f -size 0 -delete

clear
find . -type f -size 0 -delete
echo "All zero-sized files successfully deleted"

Again the find command is used to search for files in the current directory denoted by .

The -type f option specifies that we are looking for regular files only (not directories or other types of files).

The -size 0 option specifies that we’re searching for zero-sized files.

The -delete option tells find to essentially search for zero-sized files in the current directory and delete them.

Method 3: find . -type f -empty -delete

clear
find . -type f -empty -delete
echo "All zero-sized files successfully deleted"

Previous method uses -size 0, which directly checks for files with a size of 0 bytes whereas above method uses -empty, which checks for files with no data, effectively also identifying zero-sized files. In the end, both do the same job by deleting the empty or zero-sized files.