How to remove files and directories quickly via terminal (bash shell)
FileTerminalDirectoryRmRmdirFile Problem Overview
From a terminal window:
When I use the rm command it can only remove files.
When I use the rmdir command it only removes empty folders.
If I have a directory nested with files and folders within folders with files and so on, is there a way to delete all the files and folders without all the strenuous command typing?
If it makes a difference, I am using the Mac Bash shell from a terminal, not Microsoft DOS or Linux.
File Solutions
Solution 1 - File
rm -rf some_dir
-r "recursive" -f "force" (suppress confirmation messages)
Be careful!
Solution 2 - File
rm -rf *
Would remove everything (folders & files) in the current directory.
But be careful! Only execute this command if you are absolutely sure, that you are in the right directory.
Solution 3 - File
Yes, there is. The -r option tells rm to be recursive, and remove the entire file hierarchy rooted at its arguments; in other words, if given a directory, it will remove all of its contents and then perform what is effectively an rmdir.
The other two options you should know are -i and -f. -i stands for interactive; it makes rm prompt you before deleting each and every file. -f stands for force; it goes ahead and deletes everything without asking. -i is safer, but -f is faster; only use it if you're absolutely sure you're deleting the right thing. You can specify these with -r or not; it's an independent setting.
And as usual, you can combine switches: rm -r -i is just rm -ri, and rm -r -f is rm -rf.
Also note that what you're learning applies to bash on every Unix OS: OS X, Linux, FreeBSD, etc. In fact, rm's syntax is the same in pretty much every shell on every Unix OS. OS X, under the hood, is really a BSD Unix system.
Solution 4 - File
I was looking for a way to remove all files in a directory except for some directories, and files, I wanted to keep around. I devised a way to do it using find:
find -E . -regex './(dir1|dir2|dir3)' -and -type d -prune -o -print -exec rm -rf {} \;
Essentially it uses regex to select the directories to exclude from the results then removes the remaining files.