Lacks auto refresh/update of results list using empty:

[kookaburra2]

Version 1.4.1.877 (x64), Windows 10 Pro 1607.
Pretty standard / default situation; about the only UI change that causes some difficulty with some software is that I have xmouse on, set to 150 ms.

This (to me, undesirable) behaviour has existed for some years...

Suppose we have C:\ABCD\XX\YY\ZZ where the only contents are YY in XX, ZZ in YY, and nothing in ZZ.
No filters set.
The results list for search C:\ABCD\ empty: is, correctly, ZZ.
Deletion of ZZ (using RtClick in results or Windows Explorer; other methods not tested) changes results list to none, instead of the expected YY.

F5 leaves the results list at none.
Changing the search to something else then back to C:\ABCD\ empty: gives the result list YY.

Similarly, adding an item to a folder in the empty: results list does not cause auto update of the results list.
Similarly, restoring an item from the recycle bin to a folder in the empty: results list does not cause auto update of the results list.
Similarly, emptying a folder does not cause auto update of the results list.

[void]

Updating empty: in real-time is on my TODO list.

The reason it is not currently real-time is because the number of subfolders and files must be calculated for each folder, which is CPU intensive.
Maintaining this count is tricky, but possible, currently Everything calculates this subfolder and file count once at the time of the search.

Thanks for the bug report.

[davidimagitech]

Just stumbled on this issue too when I was trying to use Everything to locate empty folders, or more specifically folders that are empty or contain only sub-folders that empty (recursively) and then delete them.

I couldn't figure out how to do the latter, so I was just planning to use empty: delete the deepest level of empty folders, hit F5 and repeat until I'd gotten rid of them all.

I wasn't that surprised that it didn't auto update, but I was surprised that F5 didn't work and the only way to get the search results to refresh was to exit and re-open the utility.


Anyhoo... thanks for Everything, it's a great power tool that's definitely worth a donation.

[therube]

the only way to get the search results to refresh was to exit and re-open the utility

You don't have to do that.
Any change that causes an update will suffice.

So if your search is:

empty:

Just backup 1 character so that it reads:

empty

Then go back & put the colon back in:

empty:

And with that, empty: should be "current".


See also:
Empty folders are really empty?
Remove Empty Directories

It was also mentioned to do an Alt+Enter on your selected "empty" directories to confirm, via Windows, that it too shows the total file sizes to be 0 bytes.

[NotNull]

According to the statusbar helptext for refresh:

Refresh all extended information, icon and thumbnail cache

Meaning (I think) that it will only update the properties of the entries already in the result list.

Updating empty: in real-time is on my TODO list.

Or add something like reload/Ctrl-F5, like in browsers, to re-execute the search query?

(admitted: that option will only be needed very sporadically, but is probably "cheaper" than real-time updating of empty: all the time)