How to delete folder ubuntu

Remove Directory in Linux – How to Delete a Folder from the Command Line

Linux CLI is a powerful tool that can help you accomplish complex tasks.

One of the common operations you’ll need to perform is to delete things. Just as like creating files and folders, deleting them from the Linux command line is something you’ll do often.

In this post, we will discuss how to delete directories from the command line. We will discuss the syntax along with some examples. I am using Ubuntu in these examples.

Syntax of the Linux rm Command

You use the rm command to delete something from the command line in Linux. The syntax of the rm command looks like this:

Some important flags you’ll need to use when deleting a directory are as follows:

⚠ Be careful when using the rm command️ and always make sure that any important data is backed up.

How to identify a folder to remove

Examples of Linux rm command

Note that CSharpLab is an empty directory.

How to delete a folder that’s not empty

Let’s delete the PythonLab folder first.

How to delete an empty folder

CSharpLab directory is removed

In the example below, there is a typo in the folder name. Note that the typo is ignored. The original file is intact.

Wrapping up

Removing directories is useful when you need to remove folders after archiving them, when deleting duplicates, when deleting unused folders, and much more.

All these tasks are targeted at creating more disk space. I hope you found this blog helpful.

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How to Delete a Directory in Linux

How do I delete a directory in Linux? This is a common question asked by Linux newbies. As you start working with the Linux operating system, it’s inevitable that you’ll want to delete a directory at some point.

Working with Linux requires learning much more than the basics of the C programming language and other coding languages. In this article, we’re going to discuss two methods you can use to delete a directory in Linux. We’ll also provide an example of each of these methods so you can get to work deleting directories as soon as possible.

How to Delete a Directory in Linux

In Linux, there are two ways to delete a directory:

You may be accustomed to dragging folders into your computer’s trash can when you’re ready to delete them. The trash acts as a storage facility for documents you are going to delete. Before the file is deleted, you need to empty out your trash can.

When you’re using the Linux command line, you should know there is no trash can. Once you’ve deleted a file or a directory, it’s gone.

To learn more about the command line, read our guide to learn the Linux command line.

Linux Delete Directory: rm Command

The rm command allows you to delete files and directories. This command can be used to delete both empty and non-empty directories, unlike rmdir as we’ll discuss in a minute.

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The syntax for the rm command is as follows:

There are two flags which allow you to delete a directory using rm. These are:

Suppose we want to delete a folder called “lib” in our current working directory. If we run the following command we can see what contents our folder contains:

Our command returns:

Because this folder contains files, we need to use the -r flag to delete it. We can do so using the following command:

Our command deleted the “lib” folder and all of its directories.

You can also use rm to delete multiple directories. To do so, you can specify multiple folder names after rm. Suppose you want to delete the folders “lib” and “templates” in your current working directory. You could do so using this command:

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Force Delete a Directory and Its Contents

This command will delete all directories and subdirectories in the “lib” directory permanently. You will not be prompted to confirm whether you want to delete any files when you run this command. So, you should use this command sparingly and only when you’re absolutely sure you want to delete the contents of a folder.

Delete Directory Linux: rmdir Command

The rmdir command allows you to delete empty directories. This command is useful if you know a folder is empty and want to remove it from your system.

Suppose our current working directory contains the following files and folders (which we can see by using the Linux “ls” command):

The “config” folder is empty. Suppose you want to delete the folder “config” in your current working directory. You could do so using this command:

If we run ls to see the contents of our current folder, our command returns:

You can see that the “config” directory no longer exists. It’s important to note that you cannot use rmdir to delete a directory that contains a file. If our “config” directory contained a file, the following error would have been returned:

Conclusion

Using rm and rmdir, you can delete directories in Linux. rm deletes non-empty directories. The rmdir command delete empty directories. It cannot be used to delete a directory that contains any files.

If you want to learn more about these commands, type in man, followed by the name of the command, in your terminal. This will show you the Linux manual page for the command.

Before you delete a file, make sure you have chosen the right one to delete. There is no turning back when you use a command like rm or rmdir.

To learn more about Linux, read our How to Learn Linux guide. This guide contains courses and resources to help you along your journey toward learning Linux.

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How to Remove a Directory in Linux – Delete a Folder Command

If you’re using a user interface, you can right-click on a directory and select «Delete» or «Move to Bin». But how do you do this on the terminal? I’ll explain that in this article.

How to Remove a Directory in Linux

There are two ways to remove directories in Linux: the rm and rmdir commands.

The TL;DR of both commands is that rm deletes directories that may contain content such as files and subdirectories, while rmdir ONLY deletes empty directories.

Also, both commands delete directories permanently (rather than moving them to the trash), so be careful when using them.

Let’s look at both commands in more detail.

How to Use the Linux rm command

You use the rm command to delete files and directories in Linux. For directories, this command can be used to delete a directory entirely – that is, it deletes a directory and all files and subdirectories within the directory.

Here’s the syntax of this command:

For directories, you have to provide some flag options.

How to delete a folder with contents

You will get this error: rm: test: is a directory

How to delete an empty folder

To delete an empty directory, you can use this command:

How to Use the Linux rmdir Command

The rmdir command is specifically used to delete empty directories. The syntax is:

When you use rmdir on a non-empty directory, you get this error: rmdir: [folder]: Directory not empty.

To delete an empty directory, use this command without options:

In this case, Test is a directory that has the Test2 subdirectory. If you delete the Test2 directory, Test becomes an empty directory. So instead of doing:

This command will delete Test2 and afterward delete Test, the parent in the tree. But this command will throw an error if either directory is not empty.

How to Delete Directories that Match a Pattern in Linux

You can also use rm and rmdir with glob patterns. Globbing is similar to Regex, but the former is used for matching file names in the terminal.

For example, if you want to delete the directories test1, test2, and test3, instead of running:

You can use a wildcard glob pattern like this:

The asterisk * matches any mixture of characters after the «test» word. You can also apply other glob patterns. Learn more in the globbing documentation

Wrap Up

Now you know how to delete directories in Linux from the command line. You learned about the rm and rmdir commands and when to use each.

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How to Remove/Delete Files and Directories in Linux Using rm Command?

rm command is frequently used by Linux administrator to remove files and directories in Linux.

But it’s very dangerous command so, be careful when you are running this on your system.

Because once the files and directories are deleted it cannot be recovered.

However, we can recover the deleted files and folders but it would take time and need some additional software.

Moreover, these recovery software are not assuring 100% recovery probability.

so, it doesn’t assure that the deleted files and folders will be recovered 100%.

What’s rm Command?

rm stands for remove. rm command removes given file. By default, it does not remove directories.

Also, it does not work on directories that contain files. You have to use appropriate option with rm command to remove directories and sub-directories.

How to Remove Files in Linux?

To remove/delete a single file, use the rm command followed by the file name.

By default, it doesn’t show any output while deleting a file, if you want to see the action then use the -v option with rm command.

To delete a file with verbose. It will tell you what action being performed.

How to Remove Multiple Files in Linux?

To delete multiple files at once use the rm command followed by the file names. Each file should be separated with space.

How to Remove Group of Files in Linux?

If you would like to remove group of files, use a wildcard (*) and regular expansions to match it.

If you would like to remove all .png files. use, the following format to remove it.

How to Remove Files after getting a Confirmation in Linux?

This is the best and suggested way to remove files in Linux since it’s ask your confirmation before removing the given files.

I would advise newbies to use this format while using rm command in Linux.

How to Remove Files Forcefully in Linux?

This format is not advisable even for experienced users so, i personally advise to not to use this.

It doesn’t ask your confirmation while removing files or directories and removes forcefully.

This can be found in user .bashrc file.

How to Remove Empty Directories (Folders) in Linux?

Add -d option with rm command to remove empty directory.

Also, this option doesn’t remove non-empty directory. See the following output, which will tell you what it is.

As i told in the beginning of the article, by default rm command doesn’t delete a directory. See the following output for better understanding.

How to Remove Directories (Folders) in Linux?

If you would like to ask your confirmation before deleting it, use -i option with rm command. It will ask your confirmation for each and every files and directories while deleting it.

This will delete sub-directories and their files then followed by the parent directory files and directories.

If you would like to remove a directory forcefully, use -f option with rm command.

How to Remove Multiple Directories (Folders) in Linux?

To delete multiple folders at once use the rm command followed by the directory names. Each directory should be separated with space.

Как удалить каталог в Linux

How to Remove (Delete) Directory in Linux

Существует несколько различных способов удаления каталогов в системах Linux. Если вы используете файловый менеджер Desktop, такой как «Файлы Gnome» или «Dolphin» в KDE, вы можете удалять файлы и каталоги с помощью графического пользовательского интерфейса менеджера. Но если вы работаете на автономном сервере или хотите удалить несколько каталогов одновременно, лучшим вариантом будет удаление каталогов (папок) из командной строки.

Прежде чем вы начнете

При удалении каталога с помощью файлового менеджера на рабочем столе этот каталог фактически перемещается в корзину и может быть легко восстановлен.

Будьте особенно осторожны при удалении файлов или каталогов из командной строки, поскольку после удаления каталога с помощью команд, описанных в этой статье, его невозможно полностью восстановить.

В большинстве файловых систем Linux удаление каталога требует разрешения на запись в каталог и его содержимое. В противном случае вы получите ошибку «Операция не разрешена».

Имена каталогов с пробелом в них должны быть экранированы обратной косой чертой ( / ).

Удаление каталогов с rmdir

Если каталог не пустой, вы получите следующую ошибку:

В этом случае вам нужно будет использовать rm команду или вручную удалить содержимое каталога, прежде чем вы сможете удалить его.

Удаление каталогов с rm

rm утилита командной строки для удаления файлов и каталогов В отличие rmdir от rm команды можно удалять как пустые, так и непустые каталоги.

Например, чтобы удалить каталог dir1 со всем его содержимым, вы должны набрать:

Чтобы удалить несколько каталогов одновременно, вызовите rm команду, а затем имена каталогов, разделенные пробелом. Команда ниже удалит все перечисленные каталоги и их содержимое:

Использование регулярных расширений при удалении каталогов может быть рискованным. Рекомендуется сначала перечислить каталоги с помощью ls команды, чтобы вы могли видеть, какие каталоги будут удалены перед выполнением rm команды.

Удаление каталогов с find

find утилита командной строки, которая позволяет вам искать файлы и каталоги на основе заданного выражения и выполнять действия с каждым соответствующим файлом или каталогом.

Давайте проанализируем команду выше:

Удаление всех пустых каталогов

Чтобы удалить все пустые каталоги в дереве каталогов, вы должны выполнить:

Вот объяснение используемых опций:

/ bin / rm: список аргументов слишком длинный

Это сообщение об ошибке появляется при использовании rm команды для удаления каталога, содержащего огромное количество файлов. Это происходит потому, что количество файлов превышает системное ограничение на размер аргумента командной строки.

Есть несколько разных решений этой проблемы. Например, вы можете cd в каталог и вручную или с помощью цикла удалить подкаталоги один за другим.

Вывод

С помощью rm и find вы можете удалять каталоги на основе различных критериев быстро и эффективно.