How to Delete Files Using Wildcards in CMD

You can use the del command in Command Prompt (CMD) to delete files using wildcards:

del /Q "directory_path\wildcard_pattern"

In this example, the del command will delete all files that match the wildcard pattern in the specified path without prompting for confirmation.

Note: The /Q flag specifies quiet mode, which suppresses confirmation prompts.

The following example shows how to use this syntax in practice.

Example: How to Delete Files Using Wildcards in CMD

Suppose that we want to delete all files that start with temp_ in the following path:

C:\Users\admin\Documents\cmd_script\my_demoApp\

We can type the following command to delete the files:

del /Q "C:\Users\admin\Documents\cmd_script\my_demoApp\temp_*"
```powershell
Output: 👇️

!CMD - Delete files using wildcards

We can see that all files starting with **temp_** in **C:\Users\admin\Documents\cmd_script\mydemoApp\\** are deleted without prompting for confirmation.

**Note:** Use this command with caution as it will permanently delete all matching files.

## Conclusion

I hope the above article on deleting the files using wildcards in CMD is helpful to you.

You can find more topics about Active Directory tools and PowerShell basics on the [ActiveDirectoryTools](https://activedirectorytools.net/) home page.