What is the FTP Command for deleting multiple files as once?

I'm trying to run this command via FTP in order to delete some files I have stored in a folder in my website:

DEL *.csv

However this doesn't work and I don't know why. However if I try to delete every single file this works:

DEL file.csv (works)

How could I do in order to solve this issue?

4 Answers

If you're using the Windows command-line ftp client, then you will need to use mdelete to delete multiple files, as delete will only delete a single file.

Edit: Answering the additional questions in the comments.

If you want to put these commands in a file so that you can perform them as some kind of batch process, you could create a text file and put the commands in sequence there:

prompt
mdel *
quit

Then you could run this as a single step with the -s parameter.

To use mdelete use the syntax below to automate the process

At the FTP> use the "prompt" command to disable interaction (mode off)

Type this command:

• FTP> mdelete [directory] *.extenstion |yes

For example, mdelete standard *.jpg |yes

With Windows 7:

The existing answer will work only partially. To delete more files at once without confirmation from the server we must connect to the server with the command:

ftp -i yourwebsite

So after you connect with that command, you can use mdelete at the FTP prompt:

mdelete *.html

This is an example for an inline multidelete ftp script, added bonus an aritmetic YYYYMM variable. Use prompt to disable an interactive prompt query.

#!/bin/sh
## Delete files from FTP server
HOST=11.22.33.44
USER=myuser
PWD="mypwd"
YM=$(date +'%Y%m')
YM=$(( $YM-3 ))
echo YearMonth $YM
ftp -p -n $HOST <<END_SCRIPT
quote USER $USER
quote PASS $PWD
prompt
mdel prefix${YM}*.zip
quit
END_SCRIPT
exit 0