How to delete all except for some specific folder under parent-folder

Question

So here's content under my /html folder.

[root@ip-10-0-7-121 html]# ls
a             wp-activate.php       wp-content         wp-mail.php
b             wp-admin              wp-cron.php        wp-settings.php
healthy.html  wp-blog-header.php    wp-includes        wp-signup.php
index.php     wp-comments-post.php  wp-links-opml.php  wp-trackback.php
license.txt   wp-config.php         wp-load.php        xmlrpc.php
readme.html   wp-config-sample.php  wp-login.php

I want to delete everything except for folder a and b without having to move a/b folder to another folder. What's the command to do that?

That's the name of my folder. I named them a and b. Just for testing! Not always single letter, maybe hyphen or sth else. — The One, Aug 03 '16 at 05:03
I get that but I asked if the answer should rely on the fact that they are a single letter or not? If not, what would the criteria be to exclude them? — Julie Pelletier, Aug 03 '16 at 05:04
Keep in mind that computer do not ***yet*** have mind reading technology and you need to tell the computer exactly what you want done. In your simple example, I would use `rm ??*` which would ignore single letter names. — Julie Pelletier, Aug 03 '16 at 05:06

Scantlight · Accepted Answer · 2016-08-04T03:26:30.923

You can use find with a negation (at your own risk).

find all file and folders named "a" or "b":

find -name a -o -name b

find all files and folders name "a" or "b" in the current directory"

find -maxdepth 1 -name a -o -name b

find all files and folders not named "a" and not named "b" in current directory:

find -maxdepth 1 ! -name a ! -name b

also exclude current directory from result

find -maxdepth 1 ! -name a ! -name b ! -name .

now you can use rm to delete all founded elements:

find -maxdepth 1 ! -name a ! -name b ! -name . -exec rm -rv {} \;

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Aug 14 '20 at 18:22

0

I use this command to delete all (including hidden) except selected files/folders in the CURRENT directory.

find . -maxdepth 1 ! -name "file1.php" ! -name "file2.js" ! -name "dir1" ! -name "dir2" ! -name . -exec rm -r {} \;

answered Aug 14 '20 at 18:22

Milan Chandro

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How to delete all except for some specific folder under parent-folder

2 Answers2