I just googled for “how to delete .old folders on dreamhost” no decent results.  So I tried to search for “how to delete folders that are not empty ftp which gave me some older results from 2005 to 2007 suggested that I install “Putty” and give my FTP username shell access from the control panel.

Solution to easily delete the .old folders that the one click dreamhost upgrade robot makes:

Note: regular ftp apps take forever to delete the folders and files or cant even delete folders that arent empty. Dreamweaver takes forever. This is the fast alternative.

I guess the pros use “shell” instead of regular ftp because of problems like this. Here you go:

1: from the control panel make sure your ftp username has shell access. You can keep your existing ftp username and just enable shell for it. It will now work with shell and regular ftp.

2: download this app for free http://winscp.net called WinSCP. Install it.

3: Put your shell ftp details into the program to connect to your site and delete folders quickly!

You might also find my other dreamhost article on how to schedule automated backups of your wordpress databases  and have the option to restore them with a single click ( actually works I tested it with my blog ) .