This is a convenience function that deletes all items in a given path and the path itself. The use of 'robocopy' ensures that paths that exceed the 255 character limitation are removed.

delete_all.py

# standard libraries
import os
import sys
import subprocess

__author__ = "Michael Trainor (http://www.mtrainor.com)"
__gist__ = "git@gist.github.com:f2a849dd0051d35bc2ba.git"

# usage
""" python.exe delete_all.py {your_path} """


def clean_path(path):
    """
    Cleans up path strings by normalizing slashing and stripping whitespace
    :param path: valid system string path
    """
    return path.replace("\\", "/").replace("//", "/").strip()


def delete_all(path):
    """
    This is a convenience function that deletes all items in a given path and the path itself. The
    use of 'robocopy' ensures that paths that exceed the 255 character limitation are removed.
    :param path: valid system string path
    """
    try:
        # handle pathing
        base_path = os.path.split(clean_path(path))[0]
        mir_path = clean_path(os.path.join(base_path, "mir"))
        if not os.path.exists(mir_path):
            os.makedirs(mir_path)

        # robocopy process
        command = "robocopy {0} {1} /mir".format(mir_path, clean_path(path))
        process = subprocess.Popen(command, shell=False)
        process.wait()

        # cleanup
        if os.path.exists(path):
            os.rmdir(path)
        if os.path.exists(mir_path):
            os.rmdir(mir_path)

    except (WindowsError, IOError, TypeError) as err:
        raise err

if __name__ == "__main__":
    if os.path.exists(sys.argv[1]):
        delete_all(sys.argv[1])
    sys.exit()