Two ways to remove a directory in Linux – plus a bonus method for extra security

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Linux makes interacting with your PC and your apps quite straightforward. Anything you can do on proprietary operating systems like Windows and MacOS, you can do with the open-source OS, from the simple to the complicated.  

Often, however, the simplest tasks can be a bit confusing, especially when you’re new to something. For instance, how do you delete a directory (aka “folder”) on Linux?

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Sounds simple, right? It is! Just like on MacOS or Windows, deleting a directory on Linux can be handled by anyone, regardless of skill level.

I’ll show you two easy ways to do this, and I’ll also include a bonus method that provides a more secure way to delete a directory.

Method 1: From the file manager

What you’ll need: The only things you’ll need for this are a desktop Linux distribution and a directory to delete. I’ll demonstrate this on Pop!_OS with the COSMIC desktop, but the process will be similar, regardless of Linux distro or desktop environment.

I recommend creating a test directory to avoid accidentally removing the wrong one. To create a new directory within the file manager, right-click on any blank spot in a directory and click New Folder. If you’re using KDE Plasma, you’d right-click a blank spot in the file manager and then click Create New > Folder.

This process works for both empty directories and directories that house files/folders. 

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You can then empty your trash so the file is permanently deleted.

Method 2: From the command line

Deleting a directory from the command line is a bit trickier, but not overly difficult. This is done with the rm command.

Open your terminal app

The first step is to open your terminal app.

Change into the correct directory

Next, change into the location that houses the directory to be deleted. For instance, say the directory to be deleted is located in /home/jack/Documents. To change into that directory, issue the command:

cd ~/Documents

The ~/ is shorthand for your home directory.

Note: You don’t have to change into the location housing the directory to be removed. If you don’t, you’ll just need to use the full path to the directory to be deleted.

Delete the directory

Let’s say the directory to be deleted is named TESTING. To delete that directory, regardless of whether it’s empty or contains files/folders, you would delete it with the command:

rm -rf TESTING

If you were to use only the command rm TESTING, it would fail because you’re deleting a directory. The -rf options are:

• r – recursive – deletes all files/folders within the directory and then deletes the directory itself.
• f – forces the deletion.

You don’t have to use the f option. For whatever reason, I just automatically use it.

You could also use the interactive mode, which would be:

rm -ri TESTING

When deleting in interactive mode, you will be prompted to OK every step.

Bonus method 

For some, using one of the above methods isn’t enough, especially if a directory contains files with sensitive information that need to be deleted.

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If that’s the case, you’ll want to use the shred command to overwrite the internal files/folders with 1s and 0s and then delete the directory with one of the methods above.

The shred command works like this:

shred -u -z -n 3 FILE

Where FILE is the name of the file to be deleted.

The above options are as follows:

• -u – Deallocate and remove the file after overwriting.
• -z – Add a final overwrite with zeros to obfuscate the shredding.
• -n X – (where X is a number above 3) indicates how many iterations are used for the overwriting. The default is 3.

After you’ve shredded all of the containing files, delete the directory with your file manager or the rm command.