Remove all files except some from a directory

Question

When using sudo rm -r  how can I delete all files  with the exception of the following   textfile txt backup tar gz script php database sql info txt

User · Answer

I belive you can use rm -v   filename   Except for the filename all the other files will e deleted in the directory and make sure you are using it in

User · Answer

You can use GLOBIGNORE environment variable in Bash   Suppose you want to delete all files except php and sql  then you can do the following -  export GLOBIGNORE   php   sql rm   export GLOBIGNORE    Setting GLOBIGNORE like this ignores php and sql from wildcards used like  ls    or  rm     So  using  rm    after setting the variable will delete only txt and tar gz file

User · Answer

find  path  -type f -not -name  textfile txt  -not -name  backup tar gz  -delete   If you don t specify -type f find will also list directories  which you may not want     Or a more general solution using the very useful combination find   xargs   find  path  -type f -not -name  EXPR  -print0   xargs -0 rm --   for example  delete all non txt-files in the current directory   find   -type f -not -name   txt  -print0   xargs -0 rm --   The print0 and -0 combination is needed if there are spaces in any of the filenames that should be deleted

User · Answer

Make the files immutable  Not even root will be allowed to delete them   chattr  i textfile txt backup tar gz script php database sql info txt rm     All other files have been deleted  Eventually you can reset them mutable   chattr -i

User · Answer

A little late for the OP  but hopefully useful for anyone who gets here much later by google     I found the answer by  awi and comment on -delete by  Jamie Bullock really useful  A simple utility so you can do this in different directories ignoring different file names types each time with minimal typing   rm except  or whatever you want to name it      bin bash  ignore     for fignore in       do   ignore   ignore  -not -name   fignore    done  find   -type f  ignore -delete   e g  to delete everything except for text files and foo bar   rm except   txt foo bar    Similar to  mishunika  but without the if clause

User · Answer

Just   rm   ls -I    txt     Deletes file type except   txt   Or   rm   ls -I    txt  -I    pdf     Deletes file types except   txt  amp    pdf

User · Answer

find     grep -v  excluded files criteria    xargs rm  This will list all files in current directory  then list all those that don t match your criteria  beware of it matching directory names  and then remove them   Update  based on your edit  if you really want to delete everything from current directory except files you listed  this can be used   mkdir  tmp backup  amp  amp  mv textfile txt backup tar gz script php database sql info txt  tmp backup   amp  amp  rm -r  amp  amp  mv  tmp backup      amp  amp  rmdir  tmp backup   It will create a backup directory  tmp backup  you ve got root privileges  right    move files you listed to that directory  delete recursively everything in current directory  you know that you re in the right directory  do you    move back to current directory everything from  tmp backup and finally  delete  tmp backup   I choose the backup directory to be in root  because if you re trying to delete everything recursively from root  your system will have big problems   Surely there are more elegant ways to do this  but this one is pretty straightforward

User · Answer

Assuming that files with those names exist in multiple places in the directory tree and you want to preserve all of them   find   -type f   -regex       textfile txt  backup tar gz  script php  database sql  info txt    -delete

User · Answer

This is similar to the comment from  siwei-shen but you need the -o flag to do multiple patterns   The -o flag stands for  or   find   -type f -not -name   ignore1  -o -not -name   ignore2    xargs rm

User · Answer

rm   textfile txt backup tar gz script php database sql info txt    The extglob  Extended Pattern Matching  needs to be enabled in BASH  if it s not enabled    shopt -s extglob

User · Answer

Rather than going for a direct command  please move required files to temp dir outside current dir  Then delete all files using rm   or rm -r     Then move required files to current dir

User · Answer

Since nobody mentioned it    copy the files you don t want to delete in a safe place delete all the files move the copied files back in place

User · Answer

Trying it worked with   rm -r   Applications  Virtualbox VMs  Downloads Documents Desktop Public    but names with spaces are  as always  tough   Tried also with Virtualbox  VMs instead the quotes   It deletes always that directory  Virtualbox VMs

User · Answer

Remove everything exclude file name   ls -d  path to your files    grep -v file name xargs rm -rf

User · Answer

If you re using zsh which I highly recommend   rm -rf  file folder pattern to avoid   With extended glob  setopt extended glob rm --    txt rm --     sql txt

User · Answer

I prefer to use sub query list   rm -r  ls   grep -v  textfile txt  backup tar gz  script php  database sql  info txt        -v  --invert-match        select non-matching lines         Separator

User · Answer

You can do this with two command sequences  First define an array with the name of the files you do not want to exclude   files   backup tar gz script php database sql info txt     After that  loop through all files in the directory you want to exclude  checking if the filename is in the array you don t want to exclude  if its not then delete the file   for file in    do   if          files            file      then     rm   file    fi done

User · Answer

You can write a for loop for this        for x in   do         if     x      exclude criteria            then                 rm -f  x          fi done

User · Answer

Since no one yet mentioned this  in one particular case   OLD FILES  echo        create new files     rm -r  OLD FILES    or just rm  OLD FILES   or  OLD FILES  ls        create new files     rm -r  OLD FILES   You may need to use shopt -s nullglob if some files may be either there or not there   SET OLD NULLGLOB  shopt -p nullglob  shopt -s nullglob FILES  echo   sh   bash   SET OLD NULLGLOB   without nullglob  echo   sh   bash may give you  a sh b sh   bash     Having said all that  I myself prefer this answer  even though it does not work in OSX

[bash] Remove all files except some from a directory

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