How to delete a specific folder in Google Drive using Google AppScript - google-apps-script

Question

If you're just trying to delete a folder, nothing fancy, you can use this.
var folderIteratorName = DriveApp.getRootFolder().getFoldersByName("Folder Name"); // folder iterator
folderIteratorName.next().setTrashed(true);
Background info follows.
The DriveApp getFolder methods return a Folder Iterator, whose documentation gives you only three methods. What's not mentioned in there is that you must invoke the .next() method, even though the iterator has only one item in this case, to actually get the folder, which you can then invoke setTrashed(true) on to get rid of it.
I couldn't find an answer to this simple question for two days until I ran across a bit of code by ScampMichael in a tangentially related question.
function myFunction() {
var files = DriveApp.getFilesByName('data');
while (files.hasNext()) {
files.next().setTrashed(true);
}
}
The documentation for Folder lists removeFolder(child) as an option but it isn't made clear how to actually invoke this as there are few examples for any of the DriveApp, Folder, or FolderIterator classes provided in the documentation.
DriveApp.removeFolder("folder name");
Does not work either because removeFolder expects a 'child'. Conceptually most programmers know what a child is but finding documentation for what the 'child' data structure is or how precisely to specify it for that method isn't made clear in the documentation, nor are any examples provided.
If anyone has a more elegant solution please share. I've made this question and answer mainly for others with a similar problem to mine to find just so they have at least one method that works.

Answer 1

You don't need to use getRootFolder().
Other than that, there is no better, faster way to delete a folder with DriveApp. In Google Drive, you can name files and folders the exact same name. You can have 100 folders all named "My Folder". You can have 500 files named "Untitled spreadsheet". This is why there must be a folder iterator and file iterator.
function deleteFolder(folderName) {
if (folderName===undefined) {
folderName = "Test"
};
var folderToDelete = DriveApp.getFoldersByName(folderName).next();
var returnedFolder = folderToDelete.setTrashed(true);
Logger.log('returnedFolder is trashed: ' + returnedFolder.isTrashed());
};