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 17:15:58 822
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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Compare a remote file with a local file

Create a mirror of a local folder, on a remote server

Create a exact mirror of the local folder "/root/files", on remote server 'remote_server' using SSH command (listening on port 22) (all files & folders on destination server/folder will be deleted)

Convert seconds to [DD:][HH:]MM:SS

Converts any number of seconds into days, hours, minutes and seconds. sec2dhms() { declare -i SS="$1" D=$(( SS / 86400 )) H=$(( SS % 86400 / 3600 )) M=$(( SS % 3600 / 60 )) S=$(( SS % 60 )) [ "$D" -gt 0 ] && echo -n "${D}:" [ "$H" -gt 0 ] && printf "%02g:" "$H" printf "%02g:%02g\n" "$M" "$S" }

Another way to calculate sum size of all files matching a pattern

Here the pattern is '*.jar', you could pass in any pattern. Another, maybe nicer way to do this is http://www.commandlinefu.com/commands/view/1921/summarise-the-size-of-all-files-matching-a-simple-regex You could replace sed with tr

Getting Screen's Copy Buffer Into X's Copy Buffer (on Linux)

This command will let you just type c-a b (which means press 'ctrl' then 'a' then 'b'), and screen will save your copy buffer to /tmp/screen-exchange, and then execute xsel to copy the contents of that file into the system's X clipboard. 1. Install Conrad Parker's xsel from http://www.vergenet.net/~conrad/software/xsel/ 2. Add these lines to your .screenrc # Add cool line to make copying to x clipboard possible. # This binds C-a b to copy screen's copy buffer to the system clipboard. bind b eval writebuf 'exec /bin/sh -c "xsel -i -b < /tmp/screen-exchange"' 'exec /bin/sh -c "killall xsel"' 3. Restart screen. 4. Test it by typing c-a [ to enter copy mode. 5. Select some text using vi movement keys (h, j, k, l, etc...) and starting your selection by hitting the space bar, moving with vi movement keys, and then ending your selection with the space bar. 6. Type C-a b, and screen will use xsel to copy your screen copy buffer to the system's X clipboard buffer. 7. Then you can paste the screen copy buffer into any X program. Note: If you're using Mac OSX, you can use pbcopy instead of xsel. Also Note: The second exec in the .screenrc file, which runs killall on xsel, is necessary, because even when you redirect a file to xsel, xsel waits for you to press ctrl-c to kill it, and have it stop waiting for more input. Since xsel forces screen to wait, and I don't want to press ctrl-c, I send the equivalent of ctrl-c with killall causing xsel to write /tmp/screen-exchange to the X clipboard, and then exit. It's a hack, but it works. If you know how to get this to work without a lame hack leave a comment explaining how.

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"

randomize hostname and mac address, force dhcp renew. (for anonymous networking)

this string of commands will release your dhcp address, change your mac address, generate a new random hostname and then get a new dhcp lease.

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"

Watch YouTube and other Flash videos via mplayer (or whatever)

Many sites with Flash video players will download video files to /tmp on Linux, with temporary filenames like "FlashbGTHm4". These will often play in mplayer, totem, or other movie playing software. You must first navigate to a video page, let it start loading, and then pause playback.

Join flv files

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Commands using rm (301)

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