rm command

rm - remove files or directories

Changes the shell working directory.

Usage: rm [OPTION]... [FILE]...

• OPTION: Flags which enhances the rm abilities.
• FILE: The file or directory you want to remove i.e., delete permanently.

It is very important to be extra cautious while using rm command because this will delete files and directories permanently.

It would be safer to use -i flag always or in conjunction with the other flags, which will prompt to confirm before deleting files or directories.

Examples

• Deleting a single file

  $ rm document.txt
  • Deletes document.txt from the current directory.
  • No confirmation is asked, and the file is permanently removed.

  Safer Deletion would be to use -i (interactive) option to confirm each deletion:

  $ rm -i document.txt
  rm: remove regular empty file 'document.txt'?
  • Prompts you with: rm: remove regular file 'document.txt'? (Type y to confirm, n to skip.)

• Deleting multiple files

  $ rm file1.txt file2.txt
  • Deletes both file1.txt and file2.txt.
  • To Delete multiple files with common name pattern we can use wildcards

  $ rm *.txt
  • Deletes all .txt files in the current directory.

• Deleting directories

  To delete a directory and all of its contents inside, we have to use the -r (recursive) option.

  $ rm /home/user/old_project
  rm: cannot remove 'project/': Is a directory
  $ rm -r /home/user/old_project
  • Without -r, rm will fail and complain about directories.
  • Using -r deletes the old_project directory and everything inside it.

  Its always advised to use -ri flag while deleting directories to get confirmation prompt.

• Forcing deletion

  Use -f (force) to delete without prompts or errors, even if files don’t exist.

  $ rm -f non_existent_file.txt
  • No error is shown, even if the file doesnot exist there.
  • Most dangerous and powerful combo would be -rf which deletes directories silently.

  $ rm -rf /home/user/temp/
  • Deletes temp and all its contents including subdirectories and files without asking. Use with extreme caution!

• Verbose output

  Want to see what’s happening while the rm operation is running? Use -v (verbose) to display each action and what’s being deleted.

  $ rm -v file1.txt
  removed 'file1.txt'

  With directories

  $ rm -rv proj
  removed directory 'proj/bin'
  removed directory 'proj/src'
  removed directory 'proj/docs'
  removed directory 'proj'
  • Prints each file and subdirectory as they getting removed.

To get help related to the rm command use --help option

$ rm --help
Usage: rm [OPTION]... [FILE]...
Remove (unlink) the FILE(s).

  -f, --force           ignore nonexistent files and arguments, never prompt
  -i                    prompt before every removal
  -I                    prompt once before removing more than three files, or
                          when removing recursively; less intrusive than -i,
                          while still giving protection against most mistakes
      --interactive[=WHEN]  prompt according to WHEN: never, once (-I), or
                          always (-i); without WHEN, prompt always
      --one-file-system  when removing a hierarchy recursively, skip any
                          directory that is on a file system different from
                          that of the corresponding command line argument
      --no-preserve-root  do not treat '/' specially
      --preserve-root[=all]  do not remove '/' (default);
                              with 'all', reject any command line argument
                              on a separate device from its parent
  -r, -R, --recursive   remove directories and their contents recursively
  -d, --dir             remove empty directories
  -v, --verbose         explain what is being done
      --help     display this help and exit
      --version  output version information and exit

By default, rm does not remove directories.  Use the --recursive (-r or -R)
option to remove each listed directory, too, along with all of its contents.

To remove a file whose name starts with a '-', for example '-foo',
use one of these commands:
  rm -- -foo

  rm ./-foo

Note that if you use rm to remove a file, it might be possible to recover
some of its contents, given sufficient expertise and/or time.  For greater
assurance that the contents are truly unrecoverable, consider using shred.