This post will guide you how to delete a file under Linux system. How do I delete a file or directory using command line options in CentOS/RHEL/Ubuntu Linux.
- Linux Delete File Command
- Linux Delete Single File
- Linux Delete Multiple files or Directories
- Linux Delete All Files in a Directory Recursively
- Linux Delete a File with Prompt
- Linux Delete Empty Directory
- Linux Delete Files Listed in a File
- Linux Delete Files with dash
- Linux Delete Files by Inode Number
- Linux Delete Files before a Certain Date
Linux Delete File Command
You can use rm command and unlink commands to remove a file or directory under CentOS/RHEL/Ubuntu or other Unix-like Linux system. On Most filesystems, if you want to delete a file, and you need to have write permission on the parent directory.
The syntax is as followss for rm command:
rm {file_name}
rm [options] {file_name}
unlink {file_name}
rm -rf {file_name}
rm Command 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 do not remove '/' (default) -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
Linux Delete Single File
If you want to delete a single file in your Linux system, you just need to use the rm command with your filename that you want to remove. For example, you need to remove a file called fio.txt, just issue the following command:
# rm fio.txt
Linux Delete Multiple files or Directories
If you want to delete multiple files or directories in your Linux system, you can pass multiple file names to rm command. For example, you need to remove fio1.txt, fio2.txt and fio3.txt in the current directory, just issue the following command:
# rm fio1.txt fio2.txt fio3.txt
Outputs:
root@devops:~/osetc# ls fio1.txt fio2.txt fio3.txt root@devops:~/osetc# rm fio1.txt fio2.txt fio3.txt root@devops:~/osetc# ls root@devops:~/osetc#
Linux Delete All Files in a Directory Recursively
If you want to delete all files and subdirectories from a specific directory, you can use the rm command with -rf option to achieve the result. For example, you need to remove fio direcotry and its subdirectories in your current directory. Just run the following command:
# rm -rf fio
Outputs:
root@devops:~/osetc# ls fio fio1.txt fio2.txt fio3.txt subfio root@devops:~/osetc# rm -rf fio root@devops:~/osetc# ls fio ls: cannot access 'fio': No such file or directory root@devops:~/osetc#
Linux Delete a File with Prompt
If you want to get a prompt for approval to delete each of the files in your system, you need to use the rm command with -i option. Just like the below command:
# rm -i fio1.txt
Outputs:
devops@devops-osetc:~/working$ ls fio1.txt fio1.txt devops@devops-osetc:~/working$ rm -i fio1.txt rm: remove regular empty file 'fio1.txt'? y devops@devops-osetc:~/working$ ls fio1.txt ls: cannot access 'fio1.txt': No such file or directory
Linux Delete Empty Directory
If you want to delete a empty directory, you need to use another command named rmdir to achieve the result. if you just only use the rm command, it is not able to remove a directory. Issue the following command:
# rmdir fio
Outputs:
devops@devops-osetc:~/working$ rm fio rm: cannot remove 'fio': Is a directory devops@devops-osetc:~/working$ rmdir fio devops@devops-osetc:~/working$
Linux Delete Files Listed in a File
If you have a text file named fio.txt that has a list of paths to various files. and you want to iterate through each line to delete the file. You can use the rm command in combination with xargs command to achieve the result of remove files listed in fio.txt file. Issue the following command:
# xargs rm -v < fio.txt
Outputs:
root@devops:~/osetc# cat fio.txt /root/osetc/fio1/file1.txt /root/osetc/fio1/file2.txt /root/osetc/fio1/file3.txt root@devops:~/osetc# xargs rm -v <fio.txt removed'/root/osetc/fio1/file1.txt' removed'/root/osetc/fio1/file2.txt' removed'/root/osetc/fio1/file3.txt'
Linux Delete Files with dash character
If you want to delete a file with a dash in its name (-fio.txt), you need to use the rm command with –. just like this:
# rm -- -fio.txt
Linux Delete Files by Inode Number
If your file name contain special character, such as: backslash or dash, you will fail to delete files using rm command. At this moment, you can delete these files by inode number. Firstly, you need to use ls -i command to get the inode number of the file that you want to remove.
Type the following command to get the inode number of file fio.txt:
# ls -i fio.txt
Outputs:
devops@devops-osetc:~/working$ ls -i fio.txt
397287 fio.txt
From the above output, you will know that the inode number of fio.txt file is 39728.
Next, you need to use find command with delete and inum option to delete file. type:
# find ./* -inum 397287 -delete
Or
# find ./ -inum 397287 | xargs rm -v
Outputs:
devops@devops-osetc:~/working$ find ./ -inum 397287 -delete devops@devops-osetc:~/working$ ls -i fio.txt ls: cannot access 'fio.txt': No such file or directory
Linux Delete Files before a Certain Date
If you want to delete files older than a certain date on Linux, you can use the find command in combination with rm command to achieve it. For example, you need to remove all files older than 10 days, then run the following command:
# find -type f ./ -mtime +10 -exec rm -rf {} \;