rm - remove files or directories
rm [
OPTION]... [
FILE]...
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.
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(1).
Written by Paul Rubin, David MacKenzie, Richard M. Stallman, and Jim Meyering.
GNU coreutils online help: <
https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/>
Report any translation bugs to <
https://translationproject.org/team/>
Copyright © 2022 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.
unlink(1),
unlink(2),
chattr(1),
shred(1)
Full documentation <
https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/rm>
or available locally via: info '(coreutils) rm invocation'