Removing Directories

Deleting folders needs a little more care than deleting files. You have two tools.

Empty folders: rmdir

The rmdir command (remove directory) deletes a folder, but only if it is empty:

rmdir old-folder

If the folder still contains anything, rmdir refuses:

rmdir reports

rmdir: failed to remove 'reports': Directory not empty

This refusal is a safety feature: it stops you wiping out files by accident.

Folders with content: rm -r

To delete a folder and everything inside it, use rm with the -r option (recursive):

rm -r reports

This removes reports, every file in it, every sub-folder, and their contents, all permanently.

Handle with care

rm -r is powerful and dangerous. It deletes entire trees with no confirmation and no undo. Always ls the folder first to be certain of what is inside.

Mission: Decommission Old Bays

Two storage bays on the station are scheduled for decommissioning. The empty-bay folder has already been cleared out, but old-data still holds leftover files, and one of them, a.log, must be preserved before the bay is wiped.

1. Inspect the workspace, then look inside old-data, to see exactly what is there before you delete anything.
2. Create an archive folder and copy old-data/a.log into it as a safety backup.
3. Remove the empty empty-bay folder, the safe way that only works on empty folders.
4. Remove the old-data folder and everything inside it.

Expected result

Both bays are gone, a.log survives inside archive, and the mission folder is untouched.