Remove a symbolic link with PowerShell

Oct 052018

Remove-Item cannot be used to remove symbolic link to directory as it will remove the content of the directory it points to (so be careful!).

To safely remove a symbolic link from the file system using PowerShell, add the following function to your script:

From: PowerShell Gallery | Private, LinkUtils

function Remove-Symlink {
    <# 
    .SYNOPSIS 
        Removes a symbolic link. 
    #>
    param (
        [Parameter(Position=0, Mandatory=$true)]
        [string] $Link
    )    
    # Remove-Item cannot be used to remove symbolic link to directory as it
    # will remove the content of the directory it points to.
    [System.IO.Directory]::Delete($Link, $true)
}

function Remove-Symlink {

.SYNOPSIS

Removes a symbolic link.

param (

[Parameter(Position=0, Mandatory=$true)]

[string] $Link

)

# Remove-Item cannot be used to remove symbolic link to directory as it

# will remove the content of the directory it points to.

[System.IO.Directory]::Delete($Link, $true)

}

Remove-Symlink -Link [path to the symbolic link you wish to remove]

Done! 🙂

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