# Deleting files on the RDS DB instance
<a name="Appendix.SQLServer.Options.S3-integration.using.deleting-files"></a>

To delete the files available on the DB instance, use the Amazon RDS stored procedure `msdb.dbo.rds_delete_from_filesystem` with the following parameters. 


| Parameter name | Data type | Default | Required | Description | 
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | 
|  `@rds_file_path`  |  NVARCHAR  |  –  |  Required  | The file path of the file to delete. Absolute and relative paths are supported.  | 
|  `@force_delete`  |  INT  | 0 |  Optional  |  To delete a directory, this flag must be included and set to `1`. `1` = delete a directory This parameter is ignored if you are deleting a file.  | 

To delete a directory, the `@rds_file_path` must end with a backslash (`\`) and `@force_delete` must be set to `1`.

The following example deletes the file `D:\S3\delete_me.txt`.

```
exec msdb.dbo.rds_delete_from_filesystem
    @rds_file_path='D:\S3\delete_me.txt';
```

The following example deletes the directory `D:\S3\example_folder\`.

```
exec msdb.dbo.rds_delete_from_filesystem
    @rds_file_path='D:\S3\example_folder\',
    @force_delete=1;
```