Recursively delete all empty files and directories in a path. Starts as deeply as possible, removes all files first, then the parent directory if empty.

remove-empty.sh

#!/bin/bash

# Recursive Delete - All empty files and directories

# Check if a directory is provided
if [ -z "$1" ]; then
  echo "Usage: $0 [directory]"
  exit 1
fi

# Starting directory
DIR=$1

# Function to remove empty files and directories
remove_empty() {
    local directory=$1

    # Find and delete empty files in the deepest directories first
    find "$directory" -depth -type f -empty -delete

    # Find empty directories and delete them, deepest first
    find "$directory" -depth -type d -empty -delete
}

# Exporting the function to be available in the subshell spawned by find
export -f remove_empty

# Use find to apply the remove_empty function to each directory
find "$DIR" -depth -type d -exec bash -c 'remove_empty "$0"' {} \;

# Final cleanup in case the top directory is now empty
find "$DIR" -depth -type d -empty -delete