How do I delete everything in a directory, including hidden files and directories?
Right now, I use the following:
rm -rf *
rm -rf .*
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8 Answers
19
Simple and straight forward:
find -delete
Includes directories and hidden files. At least gnu-find knows -delete, your find may differ.
user unknown
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@orodbhen: find -delete won't delete the directory, where you launch the command (as in the question with rm). – user unknown Jun 10 '17 at 09:07
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The best answer is: Don't do that. Recursively remove the directory itself, then recreate it as an empty directory. It's more reliable and easier for other people to understand what you're trying to do. When you re-create the directory it may have a different owner, group and permissions. If those are important be careful. Also, if any running programs have open file handles (descriptors) on the directory then you won't want to remove it. If none of those special cases apply, then it's simpler to remove the entire directory.
Chris Quenelle
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8So how is that more easy. 'Be careful' isn't an answer. I wouldn't understand why somebody deletes a directory and rebuilds it again. – user unknown Mar 21 '11 at 03:36
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I added the phrase "as an empty directory", perhaps that's more clear. – Chris Quenelle Jul 02 '13 at 22:49
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3No, it doesn't explain why you delete a directory and recreate it then. To the things to consider belongs, btw., date/time of creation too. – user unknown Jul 02 '13 at 23:14
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3If that directory is the current working directory of some process, you may run into problems. Also, if you remove the directory, you remove information about its permissions and ownership. – Jul 03 '13 at 00:03
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What if the directory is a mount point? What if you don't have permission to remove the directory itself? – AtomHeartFather Jan 20 '22 at 19:08
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rm -rf -- * .[!.]* ..?*
Each of the three pattern expands to itself if it matches nothing, but that's not a problem here since we want to match everything and rm -f ignored nonexistent arguments.
Note that .* would match ...
Gilles 'SO- stop being evil'
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Assuming bash 4+:
shopt -s dotglob
rm -rf -- *
##or:
rm -rf ./*
With dotglob enabled, * expands to all files and directories, even those that begin with . - but doesn't expand to . and .., so it is safe to use with rm.
evilsoup
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if you are in the directory:
cd .. && rm -rf dir && mkdir dir && cd dir
otherwise:
rm -rf /path/to/dir && mkdir /path/to/dir
David Harris
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Oh my Zsh
rm -rf (.|)*
Again, this is for Zsh only.
phunehehe
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2Or
*(D)(theDglob qualifier turns on theglob_dotsoption for this pattern). – Gilles 'SO- stop being evil' Jan 28 '11 at 20:14 -
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rm -rf {.,}*(unlike bash, zsh doesn't include.and..into{.,}*, at least on my machine). – sasha Jan 11 '17 at 11:50
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How about using find. I think this is generally a good choice, when you have to dig through sub-directories.
find . -type f -exec rm {} \;
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1there is a -delete switch, so you can delete directories. (at least in gnu-find). – user unknown Mar 21 '11 at 03:40
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Try rm -rf *?*. This will delete normal and hidden files.
gladimdim
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4The problem is more likely to be that
*?*will not match “dot” files/dirs (unless you have enabled thedotgloboption in bash, theGLOB_DOTSoption in zsh, or an equivalent for whatever shell you are using). – Chris Johnsen Jan 29 '11 at 03:21
rm -rf .* *. – user unknown Mar 21 '11 at 03:38rm -rf yourdirectory/*– shreyansp Apr 05 '16 at 09:08..directory, which will delete whatever is in the directory above. – Richard Peterson Dec 28 '16 at 18:56