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<html> <head> <title>rm</title> <META NAME="KEYWORDS" CONTENT="rm"> </head> <body BGCOLOR="#ffffff" LINK="#0000ff" VLINK="#0000ff" ALINK="#0000ff" TEXT="#000000"> <center> <h1><b>rm</b></h1></center> <PRE> <STRONG><A HREF="/man1/RM">RM(1)</A></STRONG> User Commands <STRONG><A HREF="/man1/RM">RM(1)</A></STRONG> 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 <STRONG><A HREF="/man1/unlink">unlink(1)</A></STRONG>, <STRONG><A HREF="/man2/unlink">unlink(2)</A></STRONG>, <STRONG><A HREF="/man1/chattr">chattr(1)</A></STRONG>, <STRONG><A HREF="/man1/shred">shred(1)</A></STRONG> Full documentation at: <https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/rm> or available locally via: info '(coreutils) rm invocation' GNU coreutils 8.30 September 2019 <STRONG><A HREF="/man1/RM">RM(1)</A></STRONG></PRE> <center> <h6>Man Pages Copyright Respective Owners. Site Copyright (C) 1994 - 2025 <a href="http://www.he.net">Hurricane Electric</a>. All Rights Reserved.</h6></center> </body> </html>