Linux delete folder with all files

How to remove files and directories quickly via terminal (bash shell) [closed]

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From terminal window:

When I use the rm command it can only remove files.
When I use the rmdir command it only removes empty folders.

If I have a directory nested with files and folders within folders with files and so on, is there any way to delete all the files and folders without all the strenuous command typing?

If it makes a difference, I am using the mac bash shell from terminal, not Microsoft DOS or linux.

4 Answers 4

-r «recursive» -f «force» (suppress confirmation messages)

Would remove everything (folders & files) in the current directory.

But be careful! Only execute this command if you are absolutely sure, that you are in the right directory.

Yes, there is. The -r option tells rm to be recursive, and remove the entire file hierarchy rooted at its arguments; in other words, if given a directory, it will remove all of its contents and then perform what is effectively an rmdir .

The other two options you should know are -i and -f . -i stands for interactive; it makes rm prompt you before deleting each and every file. -f stands for force; it goes ahead and deletes everything without asking. -i is safer, but -f is faster; only use it if you’re absolutely sure you’re deleting the right thing. You can specify these with -r or not; it’s an independent setting.

And as usual, you can combine switches: rm -r -i is just rm -ri , and rm -r -f is rm -rf .

Also note that what you’re learning applies to bash on every Unix OS: OS X, Linux, FreeBSD, etc. In fact, rm ‘s syntax is the same in pretty much every shell on every Unix OS. OS X, under the hood, is really a BSD Unix system.

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How do I remove a folder?

I am a new user and I am trying to remove a specific folder. I am using sudo rm /path/ , but it is not working. What is the correct command to use?

It is a file catolog I am attempting to remove but I am geting a message that it is empty.

6 Answers 6

Be sure the folder is really empty (hidden files/folders might be in there). Look at the file contents again with

If you’re absolutely certain that it doesn’t contain anything you want to have (including subdirectories), delete it with

• -r is for recursive, so it will delete the folder and subfolders, even if it is non-empty
• -f is for force (this might be unnecessary).

One thing to note is that the folder should be empty, then run the following command

Another thing to note is that the command your are typing should not start with a slash(/) not unless the folder is under root.

The last option and you should be very careful while using this one, is to force removal of the directory in question including any other files/directories in it.

For a beginner I would not recommend getting into the habit of using rm -Rf or rm -r -f , this will bite you in the face sooner or later. Safer would be to create a systemwide alias. Open terminal: Ctrl + Alt + T , then type:

So you get prompted before wiping out all your vacation photo’s by accident. The second recommendation I would like to add is to use rmdir , it will complain about non-empty directories and that is exactly what you want as a newbee.

But in the sense of the question, the answer is as given here already, use -f to erase a folder.

If you are sure that the directory exists, then:

To delete the entire directory to your folders and files

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Linux Delete Folder Using rmdir and rm Command

Linux delete folder using rmdir

Let us see some examples that show how to remove a folder in Linux.

Linux remove folder

In this example, delete the directory called /tmp/letters/
rmdir /tmp/letters
For example, the following command would remove two empty folders named alpha and delta in the current directory:
rmdir alpha delta

How to get additional information about what is happening when running rmdir

Pass the -v (verbose) option as follows:
rmdir -v dir1
rmdir -v foo bar

Remove Folder and Its Ancestors

The -p option can delete directory and its subdirectories/sub-folders:
rmdir -p dir1/dir2/dir3
Where rmdir command command options are as follows:

• -p : Linux remove folder i.e. remove the parent folders of the specified directory
• -v : Output a diagnostic for every directory processed
• —ignore-fail-on-non-empty : Ignore each failure that is solely because a folder is non-empty.

Delete All Files and Folders Including Subdirectories

Use the following syntax:
rm -rf /path/to/dir
For example, delete /home/vivek/docs and all its subdirectories including files, enter:

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Where rm command options are as follows,

• -r : Recursively delete a directory by first deleting all of its contents
• -f : Linux delete folder forcefully
• -v : Verbose output

GUI File Manager

The Nautilus file manager (GNOME desktop) provides a simple and integrated way to manage your files and applications. Just open it from Places menu and select folder and hit delete key.

Fig.01: Gnome File Browser

Conclusion

In this tutorial, you learned how to delete folders in the Linux using rmdir and rm command-line options. The rmdir command is used to remove empty folders in Linux. The rm command used to delete both files and folders even if they are not empty. See rmdir help page here for more info.

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Linux Delete Folder Recursively Command

rm command syntax to delete directories recursively

The syntax is as follows:

Tutorial details
Difficulty level	Easy
Root privileges	No
Requirements	None
Est. reading time	2m

rm -r dirName
## OR ##
rm -r folderName
## OR ##
rm -rf folderName

Did you know?
Everything is a file in Linux and Unix-like systems. In other words, your pictures, documents, directories/folders, SSD/hard-drives, NIC, USB devices, keyboards, printers, and some network communications all are files.

Examples that examples how to delete folder recursively

In this example, recursively delete data folder in the current home directory:

The specified /home/vivek/data/ will first be emptied of any subdirectories including their subdirectories and files and then data directory removed. The user is prompted for removal of any write-protected files in the directories unless the -f (force) option is given on command line:

To remove a folder whose name starts with a — , for example ‘ —dsaatia ‘, use one of these commands:

We can add the -v option to see verbose outputs. In other words, the rm command will explain what is being done to our files and folders on Linux. For instance:
rm -rfv /path/to/dir1
rm -r -f -v /home/vivek/oldpartpics

Removing folders with names containing strange characters

Your folders and files may have while spaces, semicolons, backslashes and other chracters in Linux. For example:
ls -l
Let us say we have a folder named “ Our Sales Data ” and “ baddir# ” or “ dir2 ;# “. So how do we delete those directories with special names containing strange characters? The answer is simple. We try to enclose our troublesome filename or folder name in quotes. For example:
rm ‘Our Sales Data’
rm -rfv ‘/path/to/Dir 1 ;’
rm -r -f -v «baddir#»
rm a\ long \dir1 \name

Sometimes, we need insert a backslash ( \ ) before the meta-character in your filename or folder name:
rm \$dir1

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Deleting folder recursively command summary

rm command options for removing dirs/folders recursively

Command and options	Description
-f	Forceful option. Ignore nonexistent files and arguments, never prompt
-r	remove directories and their contents recursively
-v	Verbose output
rm — ‘-dir1’	Remove a dir/file whoes name start with a ‘ — ‘
rm ./-dir1	Same as above
rm -rfv ‘dir name here’	Enclose your troublesome filename/folder in quotes
rm -rfv \$dirname1	Same as above

See Linux rm(1) command man page or rm command example page for more information:
man rm
rm —help

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How can I recursively delete all files of a specific extension in the current directory?

How do I safely delete all files with a specific extension (e.g. .bak ) from current directory and all subfolders using one command-line? Simply, I’m afraid to use rm since I used it wrong once and now I need advice.

8 Answers 8

You don’t even need to use rm in this case if you are afraid. Use find :

But use it with precaution. Run first:

to see exactly which files you will remove.

Also, make sure that -delete is the last argument in your command. If you put it before the -name *.bak argument , it will delete everything.

See man find and man rm for more info and see also this related question on SE:

First run the command shopt -s globstar . You can run that on the command line, and it’ll have effect only in that shell window. You can put it in your .bashrc , and then all newly started shells will pick it up. The effect of that command is to make **/ match files in the current directory and its subdirectories recursively (by default, **/ means the same thing as */ : only in the immediate subdirectories). Then:

(or gvfs-trash **/*.bak or what have you).

Deleting files is for me not something you should use rm for. Here is an alternative:

As Flimm states in the comments:

The package trash-cli does the same thing as gvfs-trash without the dependency on gvfs.

You don’t need to make an alias for this, because the trash-cli package provides a command trash , which does what we want.

As Eliah Kagan makes clear in extensive comments, you can also make this recursive using find . In that case you can’t use an alias, so the commands below assume you have installed trash-cli . I summarise Eliah’s comments:

This command finds and displays all .bak files and symlinks anywhere in the current directory or its subdirectories or below.

To delete them, append an -exec with the trash command:

-xtype f selects files and symlinks to files, but not folders. To delete .bak folders too, remove that part, and use -execdir , which avoids cannot trash non-existent errors for .bak files inside .bak directories:

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