Autoremove empty folders

[Proha5]

Sorry for bad english.
I can't search answer for question: "Can i remove empty folders in vault?". It will don't corrupt vault?
I store tons files. I remove 90% files. But i see, that vault keeps empty folders.
If empty folders is safe for removing, then may be add "autoremove" function in the cryptomator?

[tobihagemann]

If your vault is inside a cloud storage, make sure that it's fully synced before cleaning up. You can actually remove empty folders that have two characters. But empty subfolders of that should not be deleted.

Example:

.
├─ d
│  ├─ BZ ← if this folder is empty, you can remove it
│  └─ FC
│     └─ ZKZRLZUODUUYTYA4457CSBPZXB5A77 ← never remove these folders (even empty ones)
├─ m
│  └─ ...
├─ masterkey.cryptomator
└─ masterkey.cryptomator.bkup

We do not automatically remove empty two-char folders because Cryptomator cannot tell in what state a sync client is.

This feature request may be part of #312.

[kbauer]

@tobihagemann I was really surprised to read, that empty folders cannot be deleted at will. Some users are bound to run cleanup tools, that assume empty folders to be meaningless.

I have been running custom scripts to do so in the past for the sake of automating the removal of "left over" folders, without the risk of accidentially deleting non-empty folders (something that isn't well supported in the Windows GUI sadly).

[tobihagemann]

I mean... you won't lose any data since empty folders are empty. But according to how directories are encrypted in the encryption scheme, a folder consists of two things:

• a directory file (which has a directory ID as its content) and
• the actual directory.

If you delete the actual directory (which is empty), you haven't deleted the matching directory file. You'll then see something like this in the log file:

WARN  o.c.cryptofs.CryptoDirectoryStream - Broken directory file /.../d/6I/MAOLOUJK2HFFL7OOBW6YAJZQBTJWOT/0ZVCT6QCJK5ER4HYHFDRTKQRJXC4Y7JA=. Directory /.../d/IB/JXAIEOFKN3K4EP7PLZDSYWCNEQHYDA does not exist.

[dhda]

@tobihagemann is this still true with the new vault format? I'm encountering a number of empty directories after migrating my vaults to the new format and came across this issue, that's causing some confusion with the sync tool I'm using. Is it true that now even empty directories will have dir.c9r files in them?

[tobihagemann]

Yes, the new vault format didn't change the hierarchy obfuscation. A folder still consists of a directory file and the actual directory. However, in the new vault format the location of a directory file has changed.

Vault format 6:

.
├─ d
│  ├─ HQ
│  │  └─ 3CQNSGNSAK5BRN2BNS4BYCS77PQGWJ ← this is the actual empty directory
│  └─ LD
│     └─ F75B2RJYSQNCTSJN6VWDKENMA4TGJE
│        └─ 0E5O6ESS776DXXOHXYCMM55RAVWMRPYI= ← this directory file points to the empty directory
├─ m
└─ masterkey.cryptomator

Vault format 7:

.
├─ d
│  ├─ 73
│  │  └─ L6LNTEYQ55F5ECOWTMRDNQFHLKSZRH
│  │     └─ 2tSaUkzXDEfe6fu3700xcIxYew==.c9r
│  │        └─ dir.c9r ← this directory file points to the empty directory
│  └─ AF
│     └─ KZ54IJ5NTAK2VJUOSRSAKEITRXOLHK ← this is the actual empty directory
└─ masterkey.cryptomator

So for now the same advice stands:

You can actually remove empty folders that have two characters. But empty subfolders of that should not be deleted.

[Lisa2022x]

I started using Cryptomator, and it's synced to my google drive. However, when I delete a folder in my google drive, the folder never gets removed by Cryptomator.

IS this a BUG that can be fixed, so when we delete things that Cryptomator doesn't leave behind 100s of empty folders?