Questions tagged [rm]
Questions relating to the Linux remove command (rm)
284
questions
6
votes
1
answer
2k
views
Why can't I delete or move these files without sudo?
I had used file-roller to extract an ISO image to my Desktop earlier, but now I can not delete or move/rename those files any more "as myself", only with sudo. Changing permissions (chmod) or content ...
14
votes
6
answers
3k
views
Remove all but every 12th file
I have a few thousand files in the format filename.12345.end . I only want to keep every 12th file, so file.00012.end, file.00024.end ... file.99996.end and delete everything else.
The files may ...
13
votes
3
answers
16k
views
rm works on command line but not in script
When I do rm *.old.* on the command line it removes correctly,
but when I do it in the following portion of my script, it does not rm all the *.old.* files.
What is wrong in my bash script:
for ...
1
vote
1
answer
388
views
Cannot delete residual system files period, even after changing permissions as root user
Okay, so I'm having a weird issue where I've already done
chown -R myuser:myuser folderName and chmod 777 -R folderName
and upon attempting deletion of these files or the folder using rm -f, I get a ...
13
votes
2
answers
2k
views
Are there any disadvantages of using rm $(ls) to delete files?
I was wondering if using rm $(ls) to delete files(or rm -r $(ls) to delete directories as well) was safe? Because in all the websites, people give other ways to do this even though this command seems ...
0
votes
1
answer
397
views
what is the accurate command_line for deleting a folder in /usr/local? [duplicate]
i was unsuccessful for installing jdk8 and i want to delete the java folder in my usr/local.
cd /usr/local
rm java
error :rm: cannot remove ‘java’: Is a directory
rmdir java
error :rmdir: failed to ...
16
votes
3
answers
12k
views
What does [co] mean in the "rm -rf filename[co]" command?
Let's say I have two files in /tmp:
root@ubuntu:~# touch /tmp/hello.{pyc,py}
root@ubuntu:~# ls /tmp/
hello.py hello.pyc
Now, lets run rm -rf command with [co] option
root@ubuntu:~# rm -rf /tmp/...
5
votes
1
answer
6k
views
How to prevent execution of "sudo rm -rf --no-preserve-root / " command?
After going through this question I'm quite scared!
It's not that I don't want to use sudo rm command, but I want to inhibit the execution of the sudo rm -rf --no-preserve-root / command.
If this ...
36
votes
5
answers
503k
views
rm: cannot remove directory/: Permission denied
I made a directory called "shadi" and set this permission for it
sinoosh@ubuntu:/home$ ls -ld shadi
drwxr-xrwx 2 root root 4096 Jul 1 01:58 shadi
In this situation I have "others" permissions, but ...
4
votes
2
answers
4k
views
Difference between rm executable >>dev/null and rm executable
What is the difference between
rm executable
and
rm executable >>dev/null
I had the later statement in a Makefile and changed it to the first one. I had the impression that nothing changed.
0
votes
1
answer
91
views
Does anyone have some suggestions for me I deleted some important files
Is there a way to recover removed files in a situation such as described below? The command I executed was:
root@system:/# rm -r /tmp/letsencrypt.sh-XXXXXX l*
I tried to remove all the files in ...
3
votes
3
answers
1k
views
how do i make shell ask for confimation for rm -rf command (even sudo)?
I want to make the command shell to prompt me for confirmation before execution of certain commands like dd , rm -rf etc.
0
votes
1
answer
1k
views
Deleted 16GB MySQL log file, no space freed
I deleted a 16GB MYSQL log file via the command line:
sudo rm /var/log/mysql/slow.log
but the space has not been freed. Is there some sort of flush I need to run?
0
votes
1
answer
1k
views
Accidentally deleted EVERYTHING in /usr/local
I performed sudo rm -rf newfolder, when I was in /usr/local/ directory. It has deleted everything inside that folder! I only wanted to delete newfolder inside that directory. How can I restore what ...
7
votes
2
answers
3k
views
I have a file named "-t". How to remove it? [duplicate]
Output of "ls -l":
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 0 Mar 4 08:22 -t
When i try to do "rm '-t'":
rm: invalid option -- 't'
Try 'rm ./-t' to remove the file '-t'.
Try 'rm --help' for more information.
5
votes
4
answers
11k
views
Can't delete a file with a '?' in the file name
Can't delete a file with a '?' in the file name, it fails to delete with the message 'the file does not exist'.
I've tried through the terminal using
rm -f ./pathtofile\?.mkv
But despite no failure ...
1
vote
0
answers
112
views
How can i remove home directory from download directory without deleting it
In my Downloads folder when I make ls I see the home directory, and I don't know why, I want to remove it but I am afraid to remove my home folder.
Can anyone tell me how I can just remove the home ...
8
votes
1
answer
85k
views
How do I delete / remove a file
I am a beginner with Linux / Ubuntu, and I'm trying to remove / delete a file.
The specific is a wallet I created in Electrum to import a paper wallet; I can see the wallet in the file list but can't ...
4
votes
1
answer
4k
views
Given rm why does rmdir exist?
Is there any resultant difference on disk between using rm or rmdir to remove a directory?
Or is it only different by usage preference, By example, given
$ mkdir a
$ mkdir a/b
$ mkdir a/b/c
Would
...
2
votes
1
answer
271
views
dpkg is confused since I manually removed installation files for spotify with sudo rm recursive
So I was reading to learn on how packages and package installation works in Ubuntu in general and where do the files responsible for the existence of any application (installation files) reside in my ...
0
votes
1
answer
5k
views
How do I remove a MATLAB program running on Ubuntu 14.04 [duplicate]
I have installed MATLAB 2012 on Ubuntu 14.04, and I want to uninstall it. According to the support instructions, I should type in a command as rm -rf matlabroot. Howeever, this does not help. In fact, ...
6
votes
1
answer
823
views
Not allowed to delete a encfs-encrypted empty folder
I have an encfs-encrypted folder and just cut the content of a subfolder of it and pasted it into another folder outside the encfs-encrypted one. While doing that, I got an error message, saying that ...
1
vote
1
answer
2k
views
How to delete all files that contains " (2)" wildcards dont work
I would like to delete all files that contains " (2)" --whitout the quotes-- in the file names. I tried first with ls to test
ls *(2)*
and list all the files in the folder
ls "*(2)*"
don't list ...
3
votes
1
answer
62k
views
Restore Direcory/files after rm -rf [duplicate]
I've accidentally deleted a project directory from my Ubuntu with rm -rf.
is it possible to restore them somehow?
2
votes
1
answer
2k
views
Remove except some files/directories in a script; need revision
I have the same problem as this question How to delete all the files/folders from the folder except few folders? several times.
This is the reason why I wanted to write myself a script for a command ...
1
vote
2
answers
1k
views
Can rm -rf use grep?
I am trying to use PlayOnLinux to install iTunes but my wine is clogged up, so I want to 100% delete the wine files, so is there any way to delete all files with the tag (or word) wine in them? ...
3
votes
3
answers
4k
views
trash: cannot trash regular file
I'm trying to avoid using rm so I don't delete anything permanently. I'm using the utility function trash, but it keeps telling me trash: cannot trash regular file. Why can't I delete these files? ...
0
votes
3
answers
11k
views
How to remove a file from usr/share/applications on ubuntu 14.04
I have examined this page (How to remove single file from /usr directory?) and tried
sudo rm /usr/share/applications/Eclipse Mars C/C++.desktop
in the terminal, but it didn't work.
I think the ...
0
votes
2
answers
5k
views
"rm: not found" by apt, cron and others
For some reason I get this error all the time in system scripts:
rm: not found
For example I wanted to update the system:
Setting up install-info (5.2.0.dfsg.1-6) ...
/usr/sbin/update-info-dir: 52: ...
35
votes
3
answers
45k
views
Piping find -name to xargs results in filenames with spaces not being passed to the command
Normally to remove files with spaces in their filename you would have to run:
$ rm "file name"
but if I want to remove multiple files, e.g.:
$ find . -name "*.txt" | xargs rm
This will not delete ...
6
votes
2
answers
24k
views
Only delete files but not folders with rm
I have a directory like this:
<folder1>
<folder2>
<folder3>
file1
file2
file3
What is the rm command like that removes only file1, file2, file3 but leaves folder1, folder2 and ...
4
votes
4
answers
6k
views
Delete a list of directories stored in a file
I have a list of directories names in the following path
/home/list/list.txt
The directories are all in the following path
/home/directory/
How can I delete the directories contained in the list ...
13
votes
3
answers
51k
views
Syntax error near unexpected token `('
When I use below code in Ubuntu terminal, it works fine:
rm !(*.sh) -rf
But if I place the same line code in a shell script (clean.sh) and run the shell script from terminal, it throws an error:
...
2
votes
1
answer
112
views
Remove list of files from different subfolders
I have a folder (call "folder"), composed of different subfolders ("subfolder1", "subfolder2",...). I would like to remove a list of files in all the subfolder of "folder", while some files are ...
2
votes
2
answers
17k
views
How to make a script delete a directory after checking for its existence?
How might one make a bash script which when run will check for the existence of a file/folder and if the file/folder is there remove it?
3
votes
3
answers
5k
views
remove pictures from folder
I want to remove all the photos from a folder and keep the remaining files.
I searched in the web and I found a tons of solutions like:
find . -type f -name "*.jpg" -delete
All the photos are jpeg, ...
2
votes
2
answers
385
views
remove file with -h_some_file_name in shell [duplicate]
I have a problem when trying removing a file with name something like -h_some_file_name, this is because of generated script that I made and forget to check the prefix.
If I run the command rm '-...
9
votes
2
answers
6k
views
How to recover accidentally removed /bin/ls binary
I have mistakenly deleted the ls executable from the /bin folder.
Can I recover it or install it through the terminal?
45
votes
7
answers
248k
views
"No such file or directory" when trying to remove a file, but the file exists?
I am trying to remove a png image that was uploaded to my server via a PHP script. Whenever I try to delete it both through ftp and terminal, I get the error
No such file or directory
However, when ...
1
vote
1
answer
63
views
all my previous configurations and settings are gone by using the following command in ubuntu 14.04LTS
I used the command rm -rf ~/.Trash/* to empty the trash but when the command is executed, all my files in Download folder are deleted and all my Ubuntu settings are changed. Can anyone please help, ...
0
votes
2
answers
307
views
I just want to remove the file from directory
I am trying to remove a file with:
ubuntu64@ubuntu:/usr/local/mongodb$ rm /usr/local/mongodb/*
But every time it just outputs:
rm: cannot remove ‘/usr/local/mongodb/mongodb-linix-x86_64-2.6.4’: ...
93
votes
6
answers
98k
views
How is 'rm -rf /' able to delete all files in the system?
I haven't tried this command on Ubuntu (for obvious reasons) so I am not sure if Ubuntu will allow its execution. But it's famous for deleting everything. Just out of curiosity, what happens when the ...
8
votes
2
answers
63k
views
how to restore data after running rm? [duplicate]
I accidently ran sudo rm *
I thought I was in an unimportant subfolder.
The result is that I deleted some very important files.
Is there any way to get my data back?
132
votes
2
answers
466k
views
Removing files older than 7 days
I write below command to delete all files that are older than 7 days, but it doesn't work:
find /media/bkfolder/ -mtime +7 -name'*.gz' -exec rm {} \;
How can I remove these files?
3
votes
2
answers
4k
views
Accidentally removed /var folder
I did something real dumb. I was creating tarballs of files in my /var/ folder. The tarball i created was put into /tmp/test.tar
In the process of testing the extraction process, I meant to delete /...
2
votes
4
answers
2k
views
how to remove image files that are smaller than certain dimensions
I have already found an answer that lists pretty much everything. Except I cannot get it to work.
I use:
find . -iname "*.jpg" -type f | xargs -I{} identify -format '%w %h %i' {} | awk '$1<...
3
votes
2
answers
7k
views
Find folders of size lesser than x and delete them
I want to find all folders (within a folder) which are less than 100mb large and delete them. I actually don't want to use a bash script. But probably there is some neat one-line-loop possibility to ...
0
votes
1
answer
827
views
Can't create files on desktop in Ubuntu 14.04
I accidentally created a desktop shortcut in my home directory.
To remove it, I did
sudo rm -rf Desktop
Now I can't create files and folders on my desktop.
4
votes
1
answer
3k
views
Difference between commands for removing empty directories
What is the difference between rm --dir <directory> and rmdir <directory> with respect to removing empty directories?
Also, if they are similar, is there any advantage of having an rmdir ...
4
votes
4
answers
17k
views
Undo sudo rm -R /*
I stupidly ran sudo rm /* followed by sudo rm -R /*
My sites still run, although the vast majority of commands like ls are now broken.
Is there a simple way to get data off the server or reverse ...