How to remove files using find's multiple -name parameter?

When you use multiple logical operations, you need to group them by brackets as below:

find . \( -name "*.un~" -o -name "*.swo" -o -name "*.swp" \) -delete

where you have to either backslash or quote the brackets ('(' ... ')') to avoid parsing these special characters by the shell.

In above example I'm using -delete instead of -exec rm -f {} which automatically remove the file, so you don't need to worry about files with spaces, otherwise it could end up bad for you.

For more syntax examples, check man find.

See also:

• Strange “find” behavior in Linux
• find(1) - Linux man page (OPERATORS section)