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Find and delete all empty files

Because of a problem I had with data transfer a while back, I now have hundreds of empty files in Dropbox. When I tried to find and delete them all in Terminal, I can't because of a lack of permission. How can I find and delete all empty files in my Dropbox account?

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Jay

Hi @esmewang, thanks for bringing this to our attention.

Are the files visible on the Dropbox site or the Dropbox folder?

Is the Dropbox desktop application currently installed an running on your machine?

This will help me to assist further!

esmewang

Hi—the answer is yes to all of those questions.

Thank you!

Jay

Thanks for the info. Are you able to delete the empty files from the Dropbox site directly?

esmewang

Yes, I can delete them one by one. The problem is that I have hundreds of these, and I can only find out if a file has zero bytes by clicking on it, which is why I was trying to do it in Terminal.

Megan

Hey @esmewang, sorry to jump in here!

The safest way to go on about it would be either through the app, or through the website. As for the terminal, what kind of error do you get on your end when you try?

esmewang

When I try and do this through Terminal:

/users/***/dropbox find -type f -empty -print (so that I can see and then delete them)

I get this message:

zsh: access denied: /users/***/dropbox

esmewang

I mean, permission denied.

Megan

Hi @esmewang, you could also try to sort your files by Size.

That way you'll be able to locate all your 0kb files faster, and then delete them.

esmewang

But this is still a process that would mean going through my hundreds of Dropbox folders and sorting them by size. Is there a shortcut to this? A code or an app or something that deletes empty files?

Megan

Hi @esmewang, on our end there isn't, but I'll definitely keep this thread open.

That way, if any other user has any suggestions, or third-party apps that can do this, they can share them with you.

Thank you!