As admin, enable "Mobile services": Site administration ► Mobile app ► Mobile settings Create or use an existing non-admin user account in the site Create a Token in the mobile app service for the previous user in the site Click on Site administration ► Plugins ► Web services ► Manage tokens Log-in into the site with the user account Go to the "Private files" section via the left menu Now create the following directories and files: One file named txtfile0.txt One file named imgfile.png (or jpg, any image) One directory named directory1 One txt file inside the "directory1" named txtfile1.txt DO NOT "Save changes" you should leave the "Private files" page open in the browser Now, extract the draftitemid from the page, for that you can "View the source code" of the page and look for the following link with this string inside: repository/draftfiles_manager.php You will see that the link contains an itemid parameter, copy the value because you will use it later Open the console an execute this new curl request, replacing wstoken with the token you just created, the site url with yours and DRAFTITEMID with the itemid value you copied in the previous step. curl 'http://localhost/m/stable_master/webservice/rest/server.php?moodlewsrestformat=json' --data 'wsfunction=core_files_delete_draft_files&wstoken=3af67232a7596ceb658df4db329e5ad6&draftitemid=DRAFTITEMID&files [0] [filepath] =/directory1/&files [0] [filename] =&files [1] [filepath] =/&files [1] [filename] =txtfile0.txt' | python -m "json.tool" Go back to the "Private files" page Click on the "Files" link that is on top of the files thumbnails and bellow the icons for adding files and creating directory, this will reload the file manager and confirm that You only see the imgfile.png file, the rest of the files and directories are gone