Delete a “folder” in Azure Blob Storage

Question

I would like to delete a folder from the container of my Azure Blob Storage account. This one contains 3 000 000+ files and using Azure Storage Explorer it is a pretty long process (1 000 files/5 min) so I would like to know if it is possible to delete a folder at once.

I am aware there is no "folder" in Azure Blob Storage and it is more a virtual path to access a blob but regarding batch deletion for a huge amount of blobs it is problematic.

Try the CLI - docs.microsoft.com/en-us/cli/azure/storage/…. --pattern and --dryrun are your friends. — evilSnobu
I don't think that you could delete so huge number of blobs at once. If delete the container is possible, you could try to delete it with Azure portal directly.Then you no need to use Azure Storage Explorer locally. But currently delete "folder" is not supported via Azure portal. — Tom Sun - MSFT
Tom is correct. If you're organizing your blobs in "folder" and need to delete blob "folder" at once, you're probably not using Azure Blob Storage in a right way. If you do need directory structure, please consider using Azure File Storage instead. — Zhaoxing Lu

Adam Smith - Microsoft Azure Adam Smith - Microsoft Azure · Accepted Answer · 2018-04-16T16:55:32

Ben I'd recommend using this Powershell script allowing the deletion of 10,000 a time:

This PowerShell script, designed to run in Azure Automatiom, deletes huge number of blobs in a container, by processing them in chunks of 10,000 blobs at a time. When the number of blobs grows beyond a couple of thousands, the usual method of deleting each blob at a time may just get suspended without completing the task. This could be used to to delete all blobs (when parameter retentionDays is supplied as 0), or certain blobs which has not been modified for the last rententionDays number of days.

Script can be downloaded here: https://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/Delete-large-number-of-97e04976

    <#
.Synopsis
  Deletes large number of blobs in a container of Storage account, which are older than x days

.DESCRIPTION
  This Runbook deletes huge number of blobs in a container, by processing them in chunks of 10,000 blobs at a time. When the number of blobs grow beyond a couple of thousands, the usual method of deleting each blob at a time may just get suspended without completing the task. 

.PARAMETER CredentialAssetName
    The Credential asset which contains the credential for connecting to subscription

.PARAMETER Subscription
    Name of the subscription attached to the credential in CredentialAssetName

.PARAMETER container
    Container name from which the blobs are to be deleted

.PARAMETER AzStorageName
    The Storage Name to which the container belong to

.PARAMETER retentionDays
    Retention days. Blobs older than these many days will be deleted. To delete all, use 0

.NOTES
   AUTHOR: Anurag Singh, MSFT
   LASTEDIT: March 30, 2016
#>

function delete-blobs
{   
    param (
        [Parameter(Mandatory=$true)] 
        [String]  $CredentialAssetName,

        [Parameter(Mandatory=$true)]
        [String] $Subscription,

        [Parameter(Mandatory=$true)] 
        [String] $container,

        [Parameter(Mandatory=$true)] 
        [String] $AzStorageName,

        [Parameter(Mandatory=$true)] 
        [Int] $retentionDays
    )

$Cred = Get-AutomationPSCredential -Name $CredentialAssetName
$Account = Add-AzureAccount -Credential $Cred

if(!$Account) 
{
    write-output "Connection to Azure Subscription using the Credential asset failed..."
    Break;
}

set-AzureSubscription -SubscriptionName $Subscription

$AzStorageKey = (Get-AzureStorageKey -StorageAccountName $AzStorageName).Primary
$context = New-AzureStorageContext -StorageAccountName $AzStorageName -StorageAccountKey $AzStorageKey


$blobsremoved = 0
$MaxReturn = 10000
$Total = 0
$Token = $Null
$TotalDel = 0
$dateLimit = (get-date).AddDays(-$retentionDays) 

try
{
    do
    {
        Write-Output "Retrieving blobs"
        $blobs = Get-AzureStorageBlob -Container $container -context $context -MaxCount $MaxReturn  -ContinuationToken $Token 
        $blobstodelete =  $blobs | where LastModified -LE $dateLimit
        $Total += $Blobs.Count
        Write-Output "$Total  total Retrieved blobs"

        $Token = $Blobs[$blobs.Count -1].ContinuationToken;

        if($Blobs.Length -le 0) 
        { 
            break;
        }

        if($blobstodelete.Length -le 0) 
        { 
            continue;
        }

        $TotalDel += $blobstodelete.Count

        $blobstodelete  | Remove-AzureStorageBlob -Force 

        Write-Output "$TotalDel  blobs deleted"
    }
    While ($Token -ne $Null)
}

catch 
{
    write-output $_
}

}

Delete a “folder” in Azure Blob Storage

3 Answers