Windows 10: Clear All Event Logs in Event Viewer in Windows

How to: Clear All Event Logs in Event Viewer in Windows

How to Clear All Event Logs in Event Viewer in Windows


Event Viewer is a tool that displays detailed information as event logs about significant events on your PC.

Event logs are special files that record significant events on your PC, such as when a user signs in to the PC or when a app encounters an error. Whenever these types of events occur, Windows records the event in an event log that you can read by using Event Viewer.

Advanced users might find the details in event logs helpful when troubleshooting problems with Windows and other apps. However, you may also wish to be able to quickly clear all event logs at once as needed.

See also: Review events and errors using Event Viewer | Microsoft Docs

This tutorial will show you how to quickly clear all event logs in Event Viewer as needed in Windows 10.

*Warning You must be signed in as an administrator to be able clear all event logs.

*note This will not clear Analytic or Debug logs. If you have them enabled, the wevutl command returns an error, but all other logs will be cleared.

*note Clearing all Event Viewer logs will also clear Reliability History.


CONTENTS:

• Option One: To Clear All Event Viewer Logs using a BAT file
• Option Two: To Clear All Event Viewer Logs in Command Prompt
• Option Three: To Clear All Event Viewer Logs in PowerShell
• Option Four: To Clear Individual Event Viewer Logs in Event Viewer

EXAMPLE: Event Viewer









OPTION ONE [/i] To Clear All Event Viewer Logs using a BAT file
1. Click/tap on the Download button below to download the .bat file below.
Clear_Event_Viewer_Logs.bat

Download
2. Save the .bat file to your desktop.

3. Unblock the .bat file.

4. Right click or press and hold on the .bat file, and click/tap on Run as administrator.

5. If prompted by UAC, click/tap on Yes.

6. A command prompt will now open to clear the event logs. The command prompt will automatically close when finished.





OPTION TWO [/i] To Clear All Event Viewer Logs in Command Prompt
1. Open an elevated command prompt.

2. Copy and paste the command below into the elevated command prompt, and press Enter.

for /F "tokens=*" %1 in ('wevtutil.exe el') DO wevtutil.exe cl "%1"

3. The event logs will now be cleared. You can close the command prompt when it's finished.





OPTION THREE [/i] To Clear All Event Viewer Logs in PowerShell
1. Open an elevated Windows PowerShell.

2. Copy and paste the command below you want to use into the elevated PowerShell, and press Enter.
*Arrow Get-WinEvent -ListLog * | where {$_.RecordCount} | ForEach-Object -Process { [System.Diagnostics.Eventing.Reader.EventLogSession]::GlobalSession.ClearLog($_.LogName) }

OR

*Arrow Get-EventLog -LogName * | ForEach { Clear-EventLog $_.Log }

OR

*Arrow wevtutil el | Foreach-Object {wevtutil cl "$_"}

3. The event logs will now be cleared. You can close PowerShell when it's finished.





OPTION FOUR [/i] To Clear Individual Event Viewer Logs in Event Viewer
1. Press the Win + R keys to open the Run dialog, type eventvwr.msc, and click/tap on OK.

2. Select a log (ex: Application) that you want to clear in the left pane of Event Viewer, and click/tap on Clear Log in the far right Actions pane. (see screenshot below)




OR


3. Right click or press and hold on a log (ex: Application) that you want to clear in the left pane of Event Viewer, and click/tap on Clear Log. (see screenshot below)



4. Click/tap on Clear to confirm. (see screenshot below)




That's it,
Shawn


Related Tutorials

• How to Read Event Viewer Log for Chkdsk (Check Disk) in Windows 10
• How to Read Shrink Volume Log in Event Viewer in Windows 10
• How to Read Shutdown Event Logs in Windows
• How to Clear Reliability History in Windows 10
• How to Read Logoff and Sign Out Logs in Event Viewer in Windows

:)

 

my event viewer is filledwith error mesages and ext. I want toclear it out.

Hi! Give this a try. Let me know how things go for you!

How to Clear All Event Logs in Event Viewer in Windows 10

 

Delete Event Log Files created in one month

Rishad,

I noticed that some type of XML coding might help to export.

I export the logs basically based on the setup of the events. For example, you have Event Viewer (Local) -> Windows Logs -> Security. And I export them to )say the month of April):

D:\Logs\Event Viewer\Event Viewer (Local)\Windows Logs\2016\Security\

D:\Logs\Event Viewer\Event Viewer (Local)\Windows Logs\2016\Security\Comma Separated Value - CSV\04.csv

D:\Logs\Event Viewer\Event Viewer (Local)\Windows Logs\2016\Security\Event Viewer\No Display Information\04.evtx

D:\Logs\Event Viewer\Event Viewer (Local)\Windows Logs\2016\Security\Event Viewer\Display Information for English\04..evtx

D:\Logs\Event Viewer\Event Viewer (Local)\Windows Logs\2016\Security\Event Viewer Current View - XML\04.xml

D:\Logs\Event Viewer\Event Viewer (Local)\Windows Logs\2016\Security\TXT\04.txt

D:\Logs\Event Viewer\Event Viewer (Local)\Windows Logs\2016\Security\XML\No Display Information\04.xml

D:\Logs\Event Viewer\Event Viewer (Local)\Windows Logs\2016\Security\XML\Display Information for English\04.xml

What is getting a bit more difficult is creating the Event Viewer (Local) -> Applications and Services Logs -> Dell (OK a bit easy), but then you have Event Viewer (Local) -> Applications and Services Logs -> Microsoft -> Windows -> AAD. Which goes to:

D:\Logs\Event Viewer\Event Viewer (Local)\Applications and Services Logs\Microsoft\Windows\AAD\Operational\2016\Comma Separated Files - CSV\01.csv

D:\Logs\Event Viewer\Event Viewer (Local)\Applications and Services Logs\Microsoft\Windows\AAD\Operational\2016\Event Files\No Display Information\01.evtx

D:\Logs\Event Viewer\Event Viewer (Local)\Applications and Services Logs\Microsoft\Windows\AAD\Operational\2016\Event Files\Display Information for English\01.evtx

D:\Logs\Event Viewer\Event Viewer (Local)\Applications and Services Logs\Microsoft\Windows\AAD\Operational\2016\TXT\01.txt

D:\Logs\Event Viewer\Event Viewer (Local)\Applications and Services Logs\Microsoft\Windows\AAD\Operational\2016\XML\No Display Information\01.xml

D:\Logs\Event Viewer\Event Viewer (Local)\Applications and Services Logs\Microsoft\Windows\AAD\Operational\2016\XML\Display Information for English\01.xml

So maybe if an XML export can some export / create the proper documents, that would be great!

Thank you!

 

For Windows logs and Application and Services logs, there is also the manual way to clear specific logs(only these 2 sections, custom views can be Deleted and lost, but not Cleared for example:

 

Hey Joanne,

Yeah, I have no idea what "AirSpaceChannel" is for either.

That would be normal in Powershell for any of the Analytic or Debug logs.

 

Why is it that as the admin I still have to run the bat as admin for it to work; just wondering since on win 7 I just run it as is and it clears all logs. Tried this and would not clear without running using the "run as administrator". Thanks

 

Hello csmdew, and welcome to Ten Forums. *Smile

It just needs to have elevated rights to be able to clear the event logs from the system.

 

It's Office 2016.

Microsoft Office 2016 - AirSpaceChannel
office 2016 airspacechannel - Google Search

I know this is an older thread. Regardless, I wanted to post a note here just in case anyone else looks here as I did.

Just FYI.

 

Thank you windowsnt, and welcome to Ten Forums. *Smile

 

Shawn, thanks a lot for the script.
One more excellent job (like the life saver I just did with the Restore_Windows_Photo_Viewer one!!!).
This one seems to be working perfectly, except from one thing, which I have highlighted in the picture.
Do you have any idea what it is and how it can be fixed?





BR. Dimitri

 

Hello Dimitri, *Smile

You might see if it may be able to clear it while running it in Safe Mode.

https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/2...dows-10-a.html

 

Nope..... same result in Safe Mode too!

 

Thanks Brink, For years I used to do this manually and it always was a chore. This made my day!!

 

It's basically saying that it cannot clear the "Application and Services Logs\Microsoft\RMS\MSIPC\Debug" log in Event Viewer while it's in use.

Personally, it's nothing to worry about though.

 

You're most welcome AnEdge. I'm glad it could help. *Smile