Ubuntu – How to recursively delete all files of a specific extension in the current directory

batchcommand linefilesrm

How do I safely delete all files with a specific extension (e.g. .bak) from current directory and all subfolders using one command-line? Simply, I'm afraid to use rm since I used it wrong once and now I need advice.

Best Answer

You don't even need to use rm in this case if you are afraid. Use find:

find . -name "*.bak" -type f -delete

But use it with precaution. Run first:

find . -name "*.bak" -type f

to see exactly which files you will remove.

Also, make sure that -delete is the last argument in your command. If you put it before the -name *.bak argument, it will delete everything.

See man find and man rm for more info and see also this related question on SE:

How do I remove all .pyc files from a project?

Related Solutions

Ubuntu – How to move all files in subdirectories recursively to a single directory

Remove the {} from mv, mv will take it as target directory ignoring any parent directories:

find -type f -exec mv {} collection/ \;

Ubuntu – How to delete all files inside subfolders, but not subfolders itselves

You can use the find command to identify only regular files (type f) recursively

find rootdir -type f

If that shows the results you expect, then to actually delete them

find rootdir -type f -delete

NB this is a real delete not a "move to trash" so be 100% certain that it's what you really want to do before executing the command.

Best Answer

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Ubuntu – How to move all files in subdirectories recursively to a single directory

Ubuntu – How to delete all files inside subfolders, but not subfolders itselves

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