Delete File and Folder Ubuntu Terminal Command

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Delete Comand In Ubuntu

Command To Delete File and Folder Ubuntu Terminal – To become a Linuxer, we must learn how to manipulate the data in the hard drive. One way to manipulate data is to delete files or folders.

In this article, the linux that I use is a derivative of Debian > Ubuntu, Elementary OS. This can also use on linux with other Debian or Ubuntu variants.

There are at least 3 commands that are used to delete data, both files and folders on Linux using the terminal, namely rm, unlink and rmdir.

  • rm or unlink is used to delete files
  • rm or rmdir is used to delete a folder
Delete File and Folder Ubuntu

A. How to Delete Files Using Terminal?

Delete 1 file

To delete a file in linux use the rm and unlink commands followed by the file name:

rm fileName.extension
or
unlink fileName.extension

For example we want to delete the zoom software with the file name zoom_amd64.deb. So to delete the file is to use the command:

rm zoom_amd64.deb
or
unlink zoom_amd64.deb

Delete Multiple File

What kind of delete method do you want?

If you want to delete only some files use the command:
$ rm fileName1.extension fileName2.extension fileName3.extension 

or

$ unlink fileName1.extension fileName2.extension fileName3.extension

Don’t forget every filename and other files are separated by a space ‘ ‘.

For example, we want to delete the files zoom_amd64.deb, learn_linux.jpg and guide_linux.pdf. So the command we use is:

$ rm zoom_amd64.deb learn_linux.jpg guide_linux.pdf

or

$ unlink zoom_amd64.deb learn_linux.jpg guide_linux.pdf
To delete multiple or any files, use to add a star character (*).

If you want to delete the entire file in the same file extension type use the command:

rm *.extension

For example we want to delete all pdf files, then the command is:

rm *.pdf

If you want to delete all files, all of them use the command:

rm *

Warning!! using the rm * command will delete any files!

B. How to Delete Folders Using Terminal?

How To delete a folder that does not have a file in it

The command used is:

rm -d folderName

or 

rmdir folderName

How To delete a folder that contains files

The command used is:

rm -r folderName

How To delete multiple folders

Use a command like the sequence number 2 above, but by adding the folder name and separated by a space ‘ ‘, as follows:

rm -r folderName1 folderName2 folderName3

To delete all folders entirely

Use the asterisk character (*) in the following command:

rm -r *

Warning!! using the $rm -r * command will remove whatever it is!

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