Find broken symlinks and delete them
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.
5 Alternatives + Submit Alt
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This command is adapted from http://otomaton.wordpress.com/2012/12/26/find-broken-symbolic-links/ Solutions with
find -Ldon't work when the link is a loop, an error message is printed.4find . -type l -exec test ! -e {} \; -delete -
recursively deletes all broken symlinks using zsh globbing syntax.
2rm **/*(-@) -
1find -L /path/to/check -type l | xargs rm
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It's always a good idea to check the output of find without -delete before hand to make sure the results are as you expect. If you want to see where the broken symlinks point, use
find . -xtype l -exec ls -l {} \+0find . -xtype l -delete -
-8for i in $(file * | grep broken | cut -d : -f 1); do rm $i; done
What do you think?
Any thoughts on this command? Does it work on your machine? Can you do the same thing with only 14 characters?
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symlinks -dr-d - delete dangling links -r - recursively