mkdir, rmdir, rm — Creating and Removing

Make

mkdir foo creates one directory. mkdir -p a/b/c creates the whole chain at once and silently succeeds if anything already exists — perfect for scripts. mkdir -m 700 secret sets the permissions atomically (we'll see chmod soon).

Empty-only remove

rmdir foo removes an empty directory. If the dir has anything inside, it refuses. That's the safety. Day-to-day, you almost always want rm -r instead — but rmdir is the right tool when you want the safety net.

Remove for real

rm file — delete one file. No trash, no undo.
rm -i file — interactive, asks before each.
rm -r dir/ — recurse. Deletes everything.
rm -f file — force. Doesn't complain if missing, doesn't ask about read-only.
rm -rf dir/ — the nuclear combo. Use carefully.

There is no Recycle Bin. rm means gone unless you have a backup. macOS has the trash command via Homebrew (brew install trash) which puts files in the GUI Trash for real undo.

Patterns to fear

rm -rf $VAR/* — if $VAR is empty, this becomes rm -rf /* on bash. Always quote: rm -rf "$VAR/"* and verify $VAR is set first. The Steam Linux installer once deleted users' homes because of this exact bug.

Code

Create + remove deeply·bash

mkdir -p ~/work/2026/may/notes
ls ~/work/2026/may/
rmdir ~/work/2026/may/notes      # only if empty
rm -r ~/work                     # everything under work

Safer rm via trash·bash

brew install trash
trash ~/Downloads/old.pdf        # goes to macOS Trash
# Recover from Finder, or empty for real later

mkdir, rmdir, rm — Creating and Removing

Make

Empty-only remove

Remove for real

Patterns to fear

Code

External links

Exercise

Progress

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