rm(1) User Commands rm(1)
NAME
rm - remove files or directories
SYNOPSIS
rm [OPTION]... [FILE]...
DESCRIPTION
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.
OPTIONS
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).
AUTHOR
Written by Paul Rubin, David MacKenzie, Richard M. Stallman, and Jim
Meyering.
REPORTING BUGS
GNU coreutils online help: <https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/>
Report any translation bugs to <https://translationproject.org/team/>
COPYRIGHT
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.
SEE ALSO
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'
GNU coreutils 9.1 April 2022 rm(1)
coreutils 9.1 - Generated Fri Aug 12 14:54:26 CDT 2022