How to delete all the hidden files and only them?

stf92 · 06-07-2013, 02:15 PM

Hi: I want to delete all the hidden files and directories from my home directory. I made a test in a test directory and 'rm .*' seems to work, though it wants to erase . and .. too (but he can't because they are directories). Would it be safe to use it?

I would remove write permissions from the non hidden files but i have seen that rm does NOT care about the write bit.

TobiSGD · 06-07-2013, 03:21 PM

If you only want regular files to be deleted you can use find for that:

Code:

find . -type f -name ".*" -delete

If you use zsh as shell you also can do

Code:

rm **/.*(.)

tronayne · 06-07-2013, 03:22 PM

You do not want to delete the . or ..

You can use the find utility to get a list:

Code:

find ~/ -type f -name '.*'

For example, here's the list from my home directory:

Code:

find ~/ -type f -name '.*'     
/home/trona/.xscreensaver
/home/trona/.viminfo
/home/trona/.gnuplot-wxt
/home/trona/tutorial/.gmtcommands4
/home/trona/.ICEauthority
/home/trona/.bash_history
/home/trona/public_html/phpcb-examples/ch12/.DS_Store
/home/trona/public_html/phpcb-examples/.DS_Store
/home/trona/.esd_auth
/home/trona/.config/libreoffice/3/user/store/.templdir.cache
/home/trona/.config/chromium/Default/File System/000/p/.usage
/home/trona/.thunderbird/kadbhve8.default/.parentlock
/home/trona/.cvspass
/home/trona/.serverauth.2627
/home/trona/.screenrc
/home/trona/.install4j
/home/trona/.mozilla/firefox/lh09h7sl.default/.parentlock
/home/trona/.mozilla/seamonkey/i8p0jf67.default/.parentlock
/home/trona/Ikin/_rels/.rels
/home/trona/maps/.gmtcommands4
/home/trona/maps/.gmtdefaults4
/home/trona/.exrc
/home/trona/.sh_history
/home/trona/.Xauthority
/home/trona/.lesshst
/home/trona/.profile
/home/trona/Notes/.gmtcommands4
/home/trona/Desktop/.directory
/home/trona/.gtk-bookmarks
/home/trona/.kshrc
/home/trona/src/distance/.gmtcommands4
/home/trona/tmp/.xscreensaver-getimage.cache

You can modify the find command to remove those files and directories:

Code:

find ~/ -type f -name '.*' -exec rm -r {} \;

That'll do it.

Before you do anything, however, back up your entire home directory somewhere.

Also, look at the list -- there may be files you do not want deleted; e.g., .bashr, .profile, maybe a few others. In this case, simply

Code:

find ~/ -type f -name '.*' > dot_list

Edit that file, removing anything you don't want deleted then

Code:

for file in $(cat dot_list)
do
     rm -r ${file}
done

Again, make a back up before you screw it up (so you can unscrew it).

edorig · 06-07-2013, 03:31 PM

It depends what you want to do. 'rm .*' will erase all files with a name beginning with . but will not erase
the directories. To find the list of directories you may run find -type d -name ".*" -print > hidden_directories.sh
Then, you could edit hidden directories using vi to remove . and .. and insert a "rm -rf " at the beginning of each
line with the command :1,$s/^/rm -rf / . Doing sh hidden_directories.sh will then remove all the hidden directories.
This is inelegant, since one could instead use the -exec rm -rf {}; option in print with the proper -prune option to delete all these hidden directories, but this is safer if you don't want to erase your current directory or you
want to actually keep some of the hidden directories.

stf92 · 06-07-2013, 04:18 PM

Thank you very much, guys. That's a lot of information. I'll try first with a simple 'find . -name "*." -delete'. I think this will also erase hidden directories.

TobiSGD · 06-07-2013, 04:57 PM

As far as I understand it the -delete option only deletes files.

stf92 · 06-07-2013, 05:06 PM

You are right. I just ran find with -exec and all went well. I am now trying to copy all hidden files and directories from a second user's home directory into the home directory of the first one, but I'm not sure how to do it. I never realized how difficult it can be to delete or copy files!

TobiSGD · 06-07-2013, 05:13 PM

Code:

find /home/source_user -name ".*" -maxdepth 1 -exec cp -r '{}' /home/destination_user/ \;

Should do the job.

rknichols · 06-07-2013, 08:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TobiSGD

As far as I understand it the -delete option only deletes files.

The "-delete" option will delete empty directories. The "-delete" option implies "-depth" (process a directory's contents before operating on the directory itself), so the "-delete" does have the opportunity to empty the directory before trying to delete it. Of course if the expression preceding the "-delete" leaves anything unmatched there, then the deletion will fail with "Directory not empty."

Oh yes, find is smart enough not to delete "."

TobiSGD · 06-07-2013, 08:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rknichols

The "-delete" option will delete empty directories. The "-delete" option implies "-depth" (process a directory's contents before operating on the directory itself), so the "-delete" does have the opportunity to empty the directory before trying to delete it. Of course if the expression preceding the "-delete" leaves anything unmatched there, then the deletion will fail with "Directory not empty."

Oh yes, find is smart enough not to delete "."

Thanks for correcting that. I am never stopping to learn.