NAME¶

rm - manual page for rm 8.32

SYNOPSIS¶

rm [OPTION]... [FILE]...

DESCRIPTION¶

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.

GNU coreutils online help: <https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/> Report any translation bugs to <https://translationproject.org/team/> Full documentation <https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/rm> or available locally via: info '(coreutils) rm invocation'

AUTHOR¶

Written by Paul Rubin, David MacKenzie, Richard M. Stallman, and Jim Meyering.

COPYRIGHT¶

Copyright © 2020 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.