RM

Section: User Commands (1)
Updated: March 2021
Page Index

NAME

rm - remove files or directories

SYNOPSIS

rm [,OPTION/]... [,FILE/]...

DESCRIPTION

This manual page documents the GNU version of rm. rm removes each specified file. By default, it does not remove directories.

If the -I or --interactive=once option is given, and there are more than three files or the -r, -R, or --recursive are given, then rm prompts the user for whether to proceed with the entire operation. If the response is not affirmative, the entire command is aborted.

Otherwise, if a file is unwritable, standard input is a terminal, and the -f or --force option is not given, or the -i or --interactive=always option is given, rm prompts the user for whether to remove the file. If the response is not affirmative, the file is skipped.

OPTIONS

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.

AUTHOR

Written by Paul Rubin, David MacKenzie, Richard M. Stallman, and Jim Meyering.

REPORTING BUGS

GNU coreutils online help: <https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/>
Report any translation bugs to <https://translationproject.org/team/>

COPYRIGHT

Copyright © 2020 Free Software Foundation, Inc. License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later <https://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>.
This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it. There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.

RM