Find and remove specific files via the command line.

Praj Basnet
Nov 24, 2020

For example, on a Mac, you’ll often find .DS_Store files. To find and remove these you can run the following command to search for and remove every instance:

$ find . -type f -name ".DS_Store" -exec rm {} ;

This will find all files (-type f) called .DS_Store and execute the rm (remove) command on that set {}.

Run from the top directory and it will recurse its way into all sub directories and remove the files. This can be a dangerous command so use with caution.

You can also adapt the command to execute something else (e.g. a mv to another location for example.

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