Using busybox's find to delete recursively some files
How can I find and delete all .jpg? -delete doesn't seem to work...
[/share/Multimedia/Music] # find . -name '*.jpg' -delete
BusyBox v1.01 (2015.01.25-18:47+0000) multi-call binary
Usage: find [PATH...] [EXPRESSION]
Search for files in a directory hierarchy. The default PATH is
the current directory; default EXPRESSION is '-print'
EXPRESSION may consist of:
-follow Dereference symbolic links.
-name PATTERN File name (leading directories removed) matches PATTERN.
-print Print (default and assumed).
-type X Filetype matches X (where X is one of: f,d,l,b,c,...)
-perm PERMS Permissions match any of (+NNN); all of (-NNN); or exactly (NNN)
-mtime TIME Modified time is greater than (+N); less than (-N); or exactly (N) days
You seem to be using Busybox find
, not GNU find
. While Busybox find
is supposed to support -delete
, the version with Ubuntu doesn't seem to.
$ busybox find --help
BusyBox v1.21.1 (Ubuntu 1:1.21.0-1ubuntu1) multi-call binary.
Usage: find [PATH]... [OPTIONS] [ACTIONS]
Search for files and perform actions on them.
First failed action stops processing of current file.
Defaults: PATH is current directory, action is '-print'
-follow Follow symlinks
-xdev Don't descend directories on other filesystems
-maxdepth N Descend at most N levels. -maxdepth 0 applies
actions to command line arguments only
-mindepth N Don't act on first N levels
-depth Act on directory *after* traversing it
Actions:
( ACTIONS ) Group actions for -o / -a
! ACT Invert ACT's success/failure
ACT1 [-a] ACT2 If ACT1 fails, stop, else do ACT2
ACT1 -o ACT2 If ACT1 succeeds, stop, else do ACT2
Note: -a has higher priority than -o
-name PATTERN Match file name (w/o directory name) to PATTERN
-iname PATTERN Case insensitive -name
-path PATTERN Match path to PATTERN
-ipath PATTERN Case insensitive -path
-regex PATTERN Match path to regex PATTERN
-type X File type is X (one of: f,d,l,b,c,...)
-perm MASK At least one mask bit (+MASK), all bits (-MASK),
or exactly MASK bits are set in file's mode
-mtime DAYS mtime is greater than (+N), less than (-N),
or exactly N days in the past
-mmin MINS mtime is greater than (+N), less than (-N),
or exactly N minutes in the past
-newer FILE mtime is more recent than FILE's
-inum N File has inode number N
-user NAME/ID File is owned by given user
-group NAME/ID File is owned by given group
-size N[bck] File size is N (c:bytes,k:kbytes,b:512 bytes(def.))
+/-N: file size is bigger/smaller than N
-links N Number of links is greater than (+N), less than (-N),
or exactly N
-prune If current file is directory, don't descend into it
If none of the following actions is specified, -print is assumed
-print Print file name
-print0 Print file name, NUL terminated
-exec CMD ARG ; Run CMD with all instances of {} replaced by
file name. Fails if CMD exits with nonzero
I don't know why you are using Busybox find
, but try using /usr/bin/find
instead. Or -exec rm {} +
(no support for -execdir
either) or the xargs
solution that Rinzwind suggests.
find . -type f -name "*.jpg" -exec rm -vf {} +
This will remove "files" (and not "directories") ending on ".jpg".
Mind though: you should NOT do this as root. A mistake in the command can kill your system and when not using root would error out on a permissions error.
There is no way back from this unless you created a backup.
If you do a
find . -type f -name "*.jpg" | more
you will get a list of the files about to be deleted (the | more
will show you the result in pages).
find . type f -name "*.jpg" -print0 | xargs -0 rm
works too. Same principle: the results are piped to the xargs command that does an rm for every file found.