How to make confirmation when deleting files via terminal

cd Desktop/
rm bored.py

I want it to confirm before it removes.

(I use konsole btw)

1

2 Answers

Refer to the man page of rm:

 -i prompt before every removal -I prompt once before removing more than three files, or when removing recursively. Less intrusive than -i, while still giving protection against most mistakes

So, using -i flag with rm will give you a prompt similar to:

$ rm -i bored.py
rm: remove regular file 'bored.py'? 

You can press Y will confirm the removal. Pressing N or any other key will deny the removal.

You can create an alias in your .bashrc or .bash_alias to make this flag permanent:

echo "alias rm='rm -i'" >> ~/.bashrc
source ~/.bashrc

NOTE: This will only work on files when not used with the recursive (-r) or forceful (-f) flag.

You can do this by creating an alias for rm to include the flag for interactive deletes.

Here's how:

0. Open Konsole (if it's not already open)
1. Edit the .bash_aliases file:

   {editor of choice} .bash_aliases

   ^{Note: Be sure to replace `{editor of choice} with your editor of choice.}
2. Add an alias for rm:

   alias rm="rm -i"

3. Save the file and exit
4. Reload your profile:

   source ~/.profile

Now any time you try to delete a file, you'll see something like this:

$ rm bored.py
rm: remove regular file 'bored.py'?

Pressing Y will delete the file. Pressing anything else will act as a "No", cancelling the operation.

Note: You can still use other flags despite the alias, so if you plan on removing lots of files, rm -f *.py will still work as expected without prompting for each individual file.

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