How do I remove a folder?

I am a new user and I am trying to remove a specific folder. I am using sudo rm /path/ , but it is not working. What is the correct command to use? It is a file catolog I am attempting to remove but I am geting a message that it is empty.

137 1 1 gold badge 2 2 silver badges 11 11 bronze badges asked Oct 16, 2012 at 15:55 1,081 2 2 gold badges 8 8 silver badges 3 3 bronze badges

6 Answers 6

Be sure the folder is really empty (hidden files/folders might be in there). Look at the file contents again with

sudo ls -lha /path/

If you're absolutely certain that it doesn't contain anything you want to have (including subdirectories), delete it with

sudo rm -r -f /path/

-r is for recursive, so it will delete the folder and subfolders, even if it is non-empty
-f is for force (this might be unnecessary).

14.3k 4 4 gold badges 50 50 silver badges 99 99 bronze badges answered Oct 16, 2012 at 16:33 21.7k 5 5 gold badges 49 49 silver badges 47 47 bronze badges

@EliranMalka The -f flag is not necessary for rm to delete items directly contained in the specified folder, which I presume is what you mean by "address the folder contents." Instead -f stands for force, causing rm never to prompt for confirmation even if the file to be deleted has no write permission ( rm: remove write-protected regular file ‘foo’? ), and also causing rm not to warn on an attempt to delete a file that already does not exist. It's best only to use the -f flag when it's really needed. rm -r without -f absolutely does "address the folder contents."