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=al-
ways 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 re-
moving 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 re-
cover some of its contents, given sufficient expertise and/or time.
For greater assurance that the contents are truly unrecoverable, con-
sider using shred.
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 rm translation bugs to <https://translationproject.org/team/>
COPYRIGHT
Copyright (C) 2018 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 at: <https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/rm>
or available locally via: info '(coreutils) rm invocation'
GNU coreutils 8.30 August 2019 RM(1)