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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 speci- fied 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=always option is given, rm prompts the user for whether to remove the file. If the re- sponse 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 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 ar- gument 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 con- tents. Any attempt to remove a file whose last file name component is '.' or '..' is rejected with a diagnostic. To remove a file whose name starts with a '-', for example '-foo', use one of these commands: rm -- -foo rm ./-foo 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 unrecoverable, consider using shred(1). AUTHOR Written by Paul Rubin, David MacKenzie, Richard M. Stallman, and Jim Meyer- ing. REPORTING BUGS Report bugs to: bug-coreutils@gnu.org GNU coreutils home page: <https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/> General help using GNU software: <https://www.gnu.org/gethelp/> Report any translation bugs to <https://translationproject.org/team/> COPYRIGHT Copyright (C) 2025 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 <https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/rm> or available locally via: info '(coreutils) rm invocation' GNU coreutils 9.9 November 2025 RM(1)
NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | OPTIONS | AUTHOR | REPORTING BUGS | COPYRIGHT | SEE ALSO
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