How to remove a directory recursively?

C

carbon333

Guest
By typing in the terminal:

rm -rf /path/to/the/directory
 


You do need to make sure that you have write permissions to remove the directory, sub directories. If you run into permission problems, you can do

chmod -R +w directory-name

and then

rm -rf directory-name
 
Be aware that 'rm -rf directory-name' is powerful. As in, dangerous. Use with caution.

-Bob "Know from experience"
 
The meanest prank to pull on a Linux beginner is getting them into root and telling them to run "rm -rf /".

Also, this works too:
find . -exec "rm -rf {}"\;

I believe that's the command anywho. Been a while since I used find's exec switch.
 
I have a rule that I always type in the full path to whatever i'm using 'rm -rf' on.. I'll also preach it to anyone i'm teaching..

IE: if you're root and you are in /home/rob/Downloads/ and want to remove the /home/rob/Downloads/etc/ directory, type in the full path to it.. you don't want to accidently wipe out /etc/ :)

(also, don't run around as root unless you have to!)
 

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