Bash – Remove All Files and Subdirectories Without Deleting Directory

Create a simple script with following contents

#!/bin/bash

while IFS= read -r -d '' n; 
do   
   dir=$(dirname "$n") ; 
   mv "${n}"/* "${dir}"
   rmdir "${n}"
done < <(find -type d -name "128Kbps_Songs" -print0)

Save it and make it executable using chmod +x your_script

Now run it using ./your_script

Here IFS= is done to preserve the space in the filename or path.

• -r - disables interpretion of backslash escapes and line-continuation in the read data.

• -d - recognize delimiter as data-end. Here it is emptying out the IFS

• dirname is use to remove the last folder name i.e 128Kbps_Songs from the find command output. (from ./temp/MP3_SONGS/128Kbps_Songs to ./temp/MP3_SONGS)

In these situations there is a risk of files with the same name being overwritten. As mentioned by @Arronical, you can avoid this using the -b flag to mv which causes any identically named files to be differentiated by appending ~ to their names. However, if there are three or more files with the same name, only the first and last will be saved, so check the contents before moving to protect your files.

The first, simple case is easy; we can use a shell glob. However, this won't move hidden files, so if you have any filenames beginning with ., start by turning on dotglob

shopt -s dotglob

Then you can run:

mv -b /home/smit/test/* /home/smit
rmdir /home/smit/test

Turn off dotglob if you like (it will return to default anyway when you open a new shell):

shopt -u dotglob

For the second (real) case, we will use find, which moves hidden files by default:

Make sure you are in the right location first.

cd /usr/share/background/all
find -type f -exec echo mv -vb -- {} . \;

If that looks good, run it without echo to actually move files

find -type f -exec mv -vb -- {} . \;

Then find the directories

find -type d

If you see what you want to remove:

find -type d -delete

This is safe since it will refuse to remove directories that still have contents.