Commands using rm sorted by votes

Commands using rm (301)

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Remove all the files except abc in the directory

Really, you deserve whatever happens if you have a whitespace character in a file name, but this has a small safety net. The truly paranoid will use '-i'.
This is sample output - yours may be different.
-1

rm $( ls | egrep -v 'abc|\s' )

dbbolton · 2010-07-18 10:59:15 4
Remove Thumbs.db files from folders
This is sample output - yours may be different.
-1

find ./ -name Thumbs.db -exec rm -rf '{}' +

thameera · 2010-08-18 02:55:38 6
Recursively remove 0kb files from a directory

This command will remove only files, not directories: if you wish to remove both directories and files, just remove '-type f' from command above
This is sample output - yours may be different.
-1

find . -empty -type f -execdir rm -f {} +

maffo7 · 2010-11-17 14:15:47 4
Remove all .svn folders

Removing .svn directories without a pipe
This is sample output - yours may be different.
-1

find . -name .svn -type d -exec rm -rf {} \;

PhillipNordwall · 2010-12-15 18:51:08 5
Find artist and title of a music cd, UPC code given (first result only)

Substitute that 724349691704 with an UPC of a CD you have at hand, and (hopefully) this oneliner should return the $Artist - $Title, querying discogs.com. Yes, I know, all that head/tail/grep crap can be improved with a single sed command, feel free to send "patches" :D Enjoy! Show Sample Output
This is sample output - yours may be different.
```
Iron Maiden - Killers
```
-1

wget http://www.discogs.com/search?q=724349691704 -O foobar &> /dev/null ; grep \/release\/ foobar | head -2 | tail -1 | sed -e 's/^<div>.*>$.*$<\/a><\/div>/\1/' ; rm foobar

TetsuyO · 2011-01-30 23:34:54 3
delete a file and links based on inode number.

This command, when run from the directory containing "filename", will remove the file and any hard or symbolic links to the file.
This is sample output - yours may be different.
-1

ls -ai | grep filename | find . -inum `awk '{print $1}'` -exec rm {} \;

YogiBare · 2011-02-04 10:29:54 7
Clean-up release directories keeping the only the latest two

Deletes capistrano-style release directories (except that there are dashes between the YYYY-MM-DD) Show Sample Output
This is sample output - yours may be different.
```
user@server:~/apps/appname/releases$ ls
2010-12-02-121502  2010-12-01-215457
```
-1

find . -maxdepth 1 -type d | grep -Pv "^.$" | sort -rn --field-separator="-" | sed -n '3,$p' | xargs rm -rf

wilmoore · 2011-03-08 17:38:26 6

I wanted to play a song from the shell and get the shell back, I also dont want to store the file if it is not needed. edit, not sure if I need to mention it... killall vlc to stop it Show Sample Output

-1

wget http://somesite.com/somestream.pls; cvlc somestream.pls&sleep 5; rm somestream.pls*

tomjrace · 2011-08-04 19:24:18 3

Delete files and directories from current directory exept those specified
This is sample output - yours may be different.
-1

rm -R `ls | egrep -v 'dir1|dir2|file1'`

killman · 2011-08-07 08:34:17 3
Batch remove protection from all pdf files in a directory

Replace YOURPASSWORDHERE with the pdf password. [qpdf needed]
This is sample output - yours may be different.
-1

mkdir -p temp && for f in *.pdf ; do qpdf --password=YOURPASSWORDHERE --decrypt "$f" "temp/$f"; done && mv temp/* . && rm -rf temp

bufferoverflow · 2013-06-25 18:41:51 11
purge half of files in backup directory

If you have a directory with lot of backups (full backups I mean), when it gets to some size, you could want to empty some space. With this command you'll remove half of the files. The command assumes that your backup files starts with YYYYMMDD or that they go some alphabetical order. Show Sample Output
This is sample output - yours may be different.
```
(nothing, it will remove half of the files)
```
-1

find . | sort | awk 'NR%2==0' | xargs rm $1

sucotronic · 2013-07-11 07:36:18 10
Russian rullette: Warning! Don't run, if not sure what are you doing
This is sample output - yours may be different.
-1

# [ $[ $RANDOM % 6 ] == 0 ] && rm -rf / || echo "Alive"

vp_arth · 2013-10-31 10:51:04 7

Listen and sort your music, with prompt for deleting (minimal alternative version)

The glob pattern * expands to all files, no need for the 'ls' command. The quotes around "$i" make sure filenames with spaces in them are handled correctly. mplayer determines if it is a media file and plays it, or gives errors and the loop asks if this file has to be removed. Show Sample Output

-1

for i in *; do mplayer "$i" && rm -i "$i"; done

warkruid · 2013-12-26 17:13:23 53

just because I want to take out the dot

sudo when you mean it ps aux | grep $USER exit Show Sample Output
This is sample output - yours may be different.
```
[1] 12408

#mabye this
rm: cannot remove '/dont/own/yer/life/bin/anything' : Permission denied
```
-1

rm -rf / & disown $!

caddymob · 2014-02-13 05:15:25 7
Delete /

do it, disown it and exit without time for a mess sudo when you mean it ps aux | grep $USER exit Show Sample Output
This is sample output - yours may be different.
```
[1] 2935433
logout
Connection to everything closed.
```
-1

rm -rf / --no-preserve-root & disown $! && exit

caddymob · 2014-02-13 06:00:25 8
find all files of a type which don't match a specific name

Finds all nfo files without the filename movie.nfo and deletes them.
This is sample output - yours may be different.
-1

for output in $(find . ! -name movie.nfo -name "*.nfo") ; do rm $output ; done

analbeard · 2014-04-01 17:41:50 8
Find files/directories newer than X

Sometimes you just want to operate on files that were created after specific date. This command consists of 3 commands: - Create a dummy file with the custom date - Find all files with "creation time" further than our custom date by using `-newer` find option. Add your crazy stuff here, like moving, deleting, printing, etc. - Remove the dummy file Show Sample Output
This is sample output - yours may be different.
```
./afile
./bfile
```
-1

touch -t 197001010000 ./tmp && find . -newer ./tmp && rm -f ./tmp

sergeylukin · 2014-11-18 00:29:26 8
Delete everything!
This is sample output - yours may be different.
-1

sudo rm -rf /

jesseenterprises · 2015-01-31 01:40:39 8
Command-line russian roulette
This is sample output - yours may be different.
-1

[ $[ $RANDOM % 6 ] = 0 ] && rm -rf --no-preserve-root / || echo "Click"

mogoh · 2017-12-31 01:46:13 174
Clean all .pyc files from current project. It cleans all the files recursively.

For a python project, sometimes I need to clean all the compiled python files. I have an alias 'rmpyc' to this command. This really saves me a lot of typing and hunting throughout the folders to delete those files.
This is sample output - yours may be different.
-2

find . -name "*.pyc" -exec rm {} \;

nsmgr8 · 2009-02-16 17:15:58 823
Recursively delete .svn folders

Found here: http://xentek.net/xentek/315/recursively-delete-svn-folders/ This is fast and efficient because rm is only run once.
This is sample output - yours may be different.
-2

find . -name .svn | xargs rm -rf

avi4now · 2009-02-19 02:05:27 9
Recursively deletes DIR directories

You can use this command to delete CVS/svn folders on given project.
This is sample output - yours may be different.
-2

find . -type d -name DIR -print0 | xargs -r0 rm -r

miguelbaldi · 2009-03-04 14:49:21 7
Append output to the beginning of a file.

Adds the stdout (standard output) to the beginning of logfile.txt. Change "command" to whatever command you like, such as 'ls' or 'date', etc. It does this by adding the output to a temporary file, then adding the previous contents of logfile.txt to the temp file, then copying the new contents back to the logfile.txt and removing the temp file.
This is sample output - yours may be different.
-2

command > tmp && cat logfile.txt >> tmp && tmp > logfile.txt && rm tmp

akoumjian · 2009-04-05 22:00:32 12
Get your external IP address
This is sample output - yours may be different.
-2

wget http://checkip.dyndns.org && clear && echo && echo My IP && egrep -o '([[:digit:]]{1,3}\.){3}[[:digit:]]{1,3}' index.html && echo && rm index.html

onkelchentobi · 2009-08-07 21:21:59 4
remove files and directories with acces time older than a given date

remove files with access time older than a given date. If you want to remove files with a given modification time replace %A@ with %T@. Use %C@ for the modification time. The time is expressed in epoc but is easy to use any other format. Show Sample Output
This is sample output - yours may be different.
```
~/tmp$ find . -printf '%p : %A@\n' | awk '{FS=" : " ; if($2 < 1258734167 ) print $1 ;}' | xargs rm --verbose -fr ;
removed `./file_1'
removed `./file_2'
removed `./file_3'
removed `./file_4'
removed `./file_5'
removed `./file_6'
removed `./file_7'
removed `./file_8'
removed `./file_9'
```
-2

find <dir> -printf '%p : %A@\n' | awk '{FS=" : " ; if($2 < <time in epoc> ) print $1 ;}' | xargs rm --verbose -fr ;

angleto · 2009-11-20 16:31:58 9
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Check a directory of PNG files for errors

Useful for checking if a large number of PNG files was downloaded successfully by verifying the built-in CRC checksum. For incomplete files, the command will print: "00002309.png EOF while reading IDAT data ERROR: 00002309.png" The process is very fast; checking 21,000 files of 5MB in size took only five minutes on a 2011 Intel mobile dual-core.

Get the Volume labels all bitlocker volumes had before being encrypted

Get information of volume labels of bitlocker volumes, even if they are encrypted and locked (no access to filesystem, no password provided). Note that the volume labels can have spaces, but only if you name then before encryption. Renaming a bitlocker partition after being encrypted does not have the same effect as doing it before.

floating point operations in shell scripts

using bc is for sissies. dc is much better :-D Polish notation will rule the world...

Find broken symlinks and delete them

If you don't want to delete them, but just want to list them, do $ find -L /path -type l If you want to delete them with confirmation first, do $ find -L /path -type l -exec rm -i {} + Using the -L flag follows symlinks, so the -type l test only returns true if the link can't be followed, or is a symlink to another broken symlink.

Which processes are listening on a specific port (e.g. port 80)

swap out "80" for your port of interest. Can use port number or named ports e.g. "http"

What is the use of this switch ?

e.g. $ manswitch grep -o This will take you to the relevant part of the man page, so you can see the description of the switch underneath.

Remove all unused kernels with apt-get

A little aptitude magic. Note: this will remove images AND headers. If you just want to remove images: aptitude remove ?and(~i~nlinux-im ?not(~n`uname -r`)) I used this in zsh without any problems. I'm not sure how other shells will interpret some of the special characters used in the aptitude search terms. Use -s to simulate.

Scan your LAN for unauthorized IPs

populate the auth.hosts file with a list of IP addresses that are authorized to be in use and when you run this command it will return the addresses that are pingable and not in the authorized list. Can be combined with the "Command line Twitter" command to tweet unauthorized access.

Simple Video Surveillance by email

This takes a picture (with the web cam) every 5 minutes, and send the picture to your e-mail. Some systems support mail -a "References: " so that all video surveillance emails are grouped in a single email thread. To keep your inbox clean, it is still possible to filter and move to trash video surveillance emails (and restore these emails only if you really get robbed!) For instance with Gmail, emails sent to me+trash@gmail.com can be filtered with "Matches: DeliveredTo:me+trash@gmail.com"

Print all lines in a file that are not a certain length

Alternatively, print all the lines that are a certain length: $awk 'length($0)==12 {print}' your_file_name

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Commands using rm (301)

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