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How to remove non empty Directory in Linux

Author: Vivek Gite • Last updated: November 22, 2019 • 1 comment

I am trying to delete a directory in Linux using the rmdir command. However, I am getting an error message that
read as follows:
rmdir: failed to remove 'trip-pictures': Directory not empty

How can I remove non empty directory in Linux using the cli?

There are two commands that one can use to delete non empty directories in Linux operating system:

1. rmdir command – Delete directory only if it empty

2. rm command – Delete directory and all files even if it is NOT empty

Procedure to remove non empty directory in Linux

The syntax is:

rm -rf dir-name
rm -rf /path/to/dir/name

Be careful when you use the rm command with -r and -f options. The -r option remove directories and their contents recursively
including all files. The -f option to rm command ignore nonexistent files and arguments, never prompt for anything. There is no
undo option. So you have to be very careful with rm -rf command. Let us see some examples.

Examples
Trying to remove trip-pictures directory with the rmdir command:

rmdir trip-pictures

Sample outputs:

rmdir: failed to remove 'trip-picture/': Directory not empty

To see files inside the directory use ls command

ls -l trip-pictures
ls trip-pictures

To delete all files inside trip-pictures including folder itself run the following rm command:

rm -rf trip-pictures

How to get visual confirmation about deleting directory

Pass the -v to the rm command:

rm -vrf dir1
rm -vrf dir1 dir2

Sample outputs:

removed 'dir1/resume.txt'
removed 'dir1/bar.txt'
removed 'dir1/foo.txt'
removed directory 'dir1'
removed directory 'dir2/pictures'
removed directory 'dir2'

How to get confirmation prompt before every removal of a dir

You need to pass the -i option to the rm command:

rm -ir foo

Sample outputs:

rm: descend into directory 'foo/'? y

rm: remove regular empty file 'foo/bash.tar.gz'? y
rm: remove regular empty file 'foo/db.sql'? y
rm: remove directory 'foo/'? y

To get prompt once before removing more than three files, or when removing recursively; less intrusive than -i , while still giving
protection against most mistakes pass the -I option:

rm -Ir bar

Sample outputs:

rm: remove 1 argument recursively? y

Want to get info on all rm and rmdir switches? Try:

rm --help
rmdir --help

Conclusion
You learned how to remove non empty directory under Linux or Unix-like operating systems using command line options. For more
information see rm command and rmdir command command man pages by typing the following man command command:

man rm
man rmdir

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Comments on this entry are closed.

Vivek Gite • Nov 22, 2019 @ 16:01

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