In a folder with many files how to do rm on lots of them

Question

I just experimented a bit in linux and ended up getting very many files in one and the same folder. Now when I try to do

rm -f folder/*.png

I get

-bash: /bin/rm: Argument list too long

Is there some easy way to get past this?

Own work:

I suppose I could make an ugly script which loops through rm on the result of something like

ls /folder/ | head -100 | grep ".*\.png"

But really, there must be an easier Gnu way to do it?

Related: [How many files can rm delete at once](http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/209749/how-many-files-can-rm-delete-at-once) (look at the `find ... | xargs ...` answer) — Mark Plotnick, Dec 07 '15 at 17:34

score 2 · Accepted Answer · edited Dec 07 '15 at 18:08

2

I would do something like:

ls -1 | grep "\.png$" | xargs -L 50 rm -f

This will match (and remove) only files ending with .png.

edited Dec 07 '15 at 18:08

Kira

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answered Dec 07 '15 at 17:36

David King

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Ah, xargs what a nice command it seems. – mathreadler Dec 07 '15 at 17:38
1

I usually use find for deleting an unusually large number of files. – Rui F Ribeiro Dec 07 '15 at 17:50
`find . -name .php -exec rm -f {}` would work as well. I generally prefer pipelines to find because that's how my brain works – David King Dec 07 '15 at 17:52
1

I have edited your answer with `grep '\.png$'`, to make sure it won't match file names like `abcpng` nor `a.png.bkp`. Also, in your previous comment you wrote `php` instead of `png`, but I know it was just a typo (= – Kira Dec 07 '15 at 18:07
Thanks. Can you guess what language I've been scripting in today :) – David King Dec 07 '15 at 18:10

score 2 · Answer 2 · answered Dec 07 '15 at 18:44

When you use rm -f folder/*.png or even simpler rm * then the shell (not rm) will expand the * to all relevant files. It will then call rm with all the filenames expanded. (e.g. if will do a `rm filename1 filename2 filename3 filename4 filename5 filename6 filename7 .... filename12345'

If that list is too long to pass you will get this error.

Solution: Split it in smaller chunks, or do not use the shell. E.g. find with --delete is a nice option.

find /path/to/file -name "*.PNG" -delete \;
find /path/to/file -name "*.PNG" -exec rm \; (runs rm once for each file)
find /path/to/file -name "*.PNG" -delete + (groups them into chunks just small enough to pass to rm)

The first option is the one I usually use. First tested with -print.

In a folder with many files how to do rm on lots of them

2 Answers2