Delete all hidden files recursively in current directory

14.04 command-line bash delete hidden-files

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Not really one single command, but why make it more complicated than necessary?

find -type f -name ".*" -delete; rm *~

The first command removes all files starting with . and the second one all ending with ~

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Updated on September 18, 2022

Vicky Dev over 1 year

I have a directory which contains hidden files and by that I mean, not just the files whose name starts with . but also the files whose name contains ~ character at the end like somefile.txt~.

I want to delete only those files (the remaining files need to be unaffected) in an efficient way.

How I can achieve that with a single command ?

Ubuntu 14.04 Trusty Tahr.
- SE - stop firing the good guys almost 8 years
  
  One way of doing this is rm $(ls -a | grep -e "^\.[a-zA-Z0-9_ ].*" -e ".*~") Perhaps a bit wordy, but is does the job without deleting anything it should not.
Vicky Dev almost 8 years

Not working, got following error: rm: cannot remove ‘.’: Is a directory rm: cannot remove ‘..’: Is a directory
Wayne_Yux almost 8 years

ah yes, I overlooked this. This is because .* is also expanded to the directories . and ...which cannot be deleted. See my edit for an alternative command that does not cause the error.
SE - stop firing the good guys almost 8 years

Confirmed to work.
Vicky Dev almost 8 years

Still not working for me, I have hidden files with name ending in ~, but they aren't deleted.
Wayne_Yux almost 8 years

are they found with ls *~? are they write-protected?
Vicky Dev almost 8 years

Nope, not getting by that command either. Not even with ls -R *~ .
Wayne_Yux almost 8 years

what about ls *~*?