Total Commander

With ALT+F7 is currently seems not to be possible to search for multiple directory names. For instance "release;debug" or "release*;debug*" does not find the existence of directory names "release" and "debug". Specially useful when you want to quickly delete those compiler target directories over many program and library directories. This search syntax is a handy and 'normal' Windows syntax for multiple directory names. Why does it not work?

Because it is non-standard in file managers.
TC with such syntax exists for many years.

You can use regex for your task: just search for debug|release with regex option enabled.

Try: release* debug*