Bash Remove Files

Deleting a File

rm removes the files you name immediately. Unlike deleting a file through a graphical file manager, there is no recycle bin or trash folder involved — the moment the command completes, the file's data is unlinked and generally unrecoverable.

$ rm old-draft.txt
$ ls
final-report.txt

Deleting Multiple Files

List several filenames to delete them all in one command. Wildcards like *.tmp are commonly combined with rm to clear out a whole category of files at once — but expand the wildcard with ls first to double check exactly what it matches.

$ ls *.tmp
cache1.tmp  cache2.tmp  cache3.tmp
$ rm *.tmp
$ ls *.tmp
ls: cannot access '*.tmp': No such file or directory

Deleting Directories with -r

rm refuses to delete a directory by default. Adding -r (recursive) tells it to delete the directory and everything inside it, at every nesting level, without asking about each file individually.

$ rm -r old-build/
$ ls
final-report.txt

• rm file.txt — delete a single file
• rm a.txt b.txt c.txt — delete several files at once
• rm -r folder/ — delete a directory and everything inside it
• rm -i file.txt — ask for confirmation before deleting
• rm -f file.txt — force delete, suppressing prompts and missing-file errors