Find and delete all empty files

[esmewang]

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?

[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?