RM(1) General Commands Manual RM(1)

rm - Remove (unlink) the FILE(s)

rm [OPTION]... FILE...

Remove (unlink) the FILE(s)

ignore nonexistent files and arguments, never prompt
prompt before every removal
prompt once before removing more than three files, or when removing recursively. Less intrusive than -i, while still giving some protection against most mistakes
prompt according to WHEN: never, once (-I), or always (-i). Without WHEN, prompts always

Possible values:

  • always
  • once
  • never
when removing a hierarchy recursively, skip any directory that is on a file system different from that of the corresponding command line argument (NOT IMPLEMENTED)
do not treat '/' specially
do not remove '/' (default); with 'all', reject any command line argument on a separate device from its parent

Possible values:

all
remove directories and their contents recursively
remove empty directories
explain what is being done
display a progress bar. Note: this feature is not supported by GNU coreutils.
Print help
Print version
[files]

By default, rm does not remove directories. Use the --recursive (-r or -R) option to remove each listed directory, too, along with all of its contents

To remove a file whose name starts with a '-', for example '-foo', use one of these commands: rm -- -foo

rm ./-foo

Note that if you use rm to remove a file, it might be possible to recover some of its contents, given sufficient expertise and/or time. For greater assurance that the contents are truly unrecoverable, consider using shred.

v(uutils coreutils) 0.11.0

2026-09-01