How to Remove Folders With Tilde in Windows

If you have folder names in Windows that start with a tilde (~), they cannot be easily copied or deleted or moved. Here’s the trick to remedy the issue.

Run this:

ren ~folder newfolder

But if you have a lot of folders inside a folder that has tildes AND the folder name with tilde is the same, you need to do a search and replace. Here’s the script:

for /r "c:\folderwithtildes" %F in (.) do (if exist "%F\~folderwithtilde" ren "%F\~folderwithtilde" folderwithouttilde)

Caution

As with all things that make changes, please use caution, run the script on sample data first.

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