Question
What is the difference between rm and rm -rf?
- Posted on November 7, 2019
- Linux BasicsLinux Commands
Asked by Bobby Iliev
I was recently asked what is the difference between rm and rm -rf and I thought that it would be nice to share the answer with here as well.
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If you only run rm it would only delete the named files and not directories. A rundown of the -rf arguments:
-
-r,-R,--recursive- is used to recursively delete the content of a directory, including hidden files and subdirectories. -
-f,--force- Attempt to remove the files without prompting for confirmation, regardless of the file’s permissions.
Here’s an example of what would happen if you only run rm and try to delete a directory:
rm dir1
The output that you would get is:
rm: dir1: is a directory
So to delete a folder you would just need to add the -r argument:
rm -r dir1
Regarding the -f argument, sometimes when deleting a file you would be asked for permissions, it would look something like this:
rm -f file1
Output:
rm: remove regular empty file 'file1'? yes
It is fine for a single file and it would prevent you from accidentally deleting a file, but if you are deleting hundreds of files, having to type yes for every single one could take ages. So to force the process just use the -f argument.
Hope that this helps! Regards, Bobby
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