{"id":7,"date":"2011-12-28T13:31:00","date_gmt":"2011-12-28T13:31:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jjamwal.in\/blog\/?p=7"},"modified":"2011-12-28T13:31:00","modified_gmt":"2011-12-28T13:31:00","slug":"essential-os-basics-1-deleting-files-folders-in-linux","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jjamwal.in\/yayavar\/essential-os-basics-1-deleting-files-folders-in-linux\/","title":{"rendered":"Essential OS Basics 2: Deleting files & folders in Linux"},"content":{"rendered":"
This series of posts will contain a list of some very useful Linux commands that you might need every now and then. This one is\u00a0 a small tutorial on how to delete files in linux.<\/div>\n
\u00a0First post on Linux networking here<\/a><\/div>\n

\n1. Delete files and directories<\/strong><\/span>
\n<\/strong>rm command <\/strong><\/em><\/div>\n
\n

Let us assume you want to delete some files in directory \/usr\/tmp . You first navigate to directory using command<\/p>\n

cd \/usr\/tmp<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Now if you want to delete a particular file use rm as following:<\/p>\n

rm filename<\/em> <\/strong><\/p>\n

or you can run following command from whichever directory you are in.<\/p>\n

rm \/usr\/tmp\/filename<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

But if you want to delete all the files in that directory, use rm as following:<\/p>\n

rm *.*<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

To refine it further, if you want to delete only a few files but leave the rest, you\u2019ll have to use wild-cards. I\u2019ll explain it first using deleting by extension example. Let us assume that you have a collection of zip, mp3 and bin files (with extensions .zip, .mp3 and .bin respectively) and you want to delete only mp3 files, then execute :<\/p>\n

rm *.mp3<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

It\u2019ll delete all mp3 files file leaving all zip and bin files intact. But if you want to delete .bin files too, just add the extension like this:<\/p>\n

rm *.mp3 *.bin<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

In order to delete directories, you have to modify it a little by adding -rf, If you have a directory named DIR which you want to delete, execute<\/p>\n

rm -rf DIR<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

As posted earlier, you can use *.* wildcard to delete everything in the directory including all the sub-directories:<\/p>\n

rm -rf *<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Similarly you can delete files based upon their names too. Executing<\/p>\n

rm a*.mp3<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

will delete all mp3 files which start with alphabet a, while<\/p>\n

rm -rf a*<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

will delete every file and directory which starts with a<\/p>\n

Apart from this, you might come across a scenario where you have to find and delete some type of files from multiple directories \/ folders. In this case I\u2019m assuming that you need to delete all mp3 files located in various sub-folders inside \/usr\/tmp\/. In such a case use find command
\n
\nfind \/usr\/tmp\/ -type f -iname \u201cmp3\u2033 -delete<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

or<\/p>\n

find \/usr\/tmp -type f -iname \u201cmp3\u2033 -exec rm -f {} ;<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

If you replace path \/usr\/tmp<\/strong><\/em> with just a \/<\/strong><\/em> it\u2019ll find and delete ALL mp3 files on your computer. So be careful<\/p>\n

Useful links:<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.cyberciti.biz<\/a>
\nwww.linuxquestions.org<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This series of posts will contain a list of some very useful Linux commands that you might need every now and then. This one is\u00a0 a small tutorial on how to delete files in linux. \u00a0First post on Linux networking here 1. Delete files and directories rm command Let us assume you want to delete…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[77,80],"tags":[228],"class_list":["post-7","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-linux-2","category-tutorial-2","tag-linux"],"yoast_head":"\nEssential OS Basics 2: Deleting files & folders in Linux - \u0905\u0930\u0947 \u092f\u093e\u092f\u093e\u0935\u0930 \u0930\u0939\u0947\u0917\u093e \u092f\u093e\u0926?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/jjamwal.in\/yayavar\/essential-os-basics-1-deleting-files-folders-in-linux\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Essential OS Basics 2: Deleting files & folders in Linux - \u0905\u0930\u0947 \u092f\u093e\u092f\u093e\u0935\u0930 \u0930\u0939\u0947\u0917\u093e \u092f\u093e\u0926?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"This series of posts will contain a list of some very useful Linux commands that you might need every now and then. 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