Delete all files whose filenames contain a particular string?

Question

I changed my wordpress theme. The older one created so much images on server. My new theme doesnt need them, so I want to remove all. How can I do that?

For example:
Default image: 12_angry_men_lone_holdout.jpg

I want to delete:

12_angry_men_lone_holdout-290x166.jpg
12_angry_men_lone_holdout-700x300.jpg 
12_angry_men_lone_holdout-50x50.jpg

Using Digitalocean, Ubuntu 13.10.

on a terminal type `man rm` to see the manual page of the rm command. — hmayag, Apr 05 '14 at 22:38
possible duplicate of [How to search and delete files who contain specific string in name](http://askubuntu.com/questions/625219/how-to-search-and-delete-files-who-contain-specific-string-in-name) — A.B., May 18 '15 at 13:26
Looks like these images are the automatically created thumbnails from images uploaded to your WorldPress media library. If so, then don't delete those files in terminal on the server. Open your WordPress admin page, open 'Settings' > 'Media'. Set desired thumbnail image sizes there. Then install the plugin [Regenerate Thumbnails](https://wordpress.org/plugins/regenerate-thumbnails/) and re-create all thumbnails (may take a few minutes, depending of the amount of images in your media library). — Bob, Feb 09 '18 at 19:39

score 72 · Answer 1 · answered Apr 05 '14 at 22:49

72

Use find to recursively find and delete files with "text" in their names:

find -type f -name '*text*' -delete

You might also want run find -type f -name '*text*' (without the -delete) before that to make sure you won't delete any files you didn't intend to delete.

In fact, you can place wildcards anywhere in the search string, so -name '12_angry_men_lone_holdout-*.jpg' might be more suitable in your case.

answered Apr 05 '14 at 22:49

n.st

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Is that no need to represent file path – Avinash Raj Apr 06 '14 at 02:03
@AvinashRaj If the first parameter isn't a path, `find` searches the current working directory. – n.st Apr 06 '14 at 10:30
Somebody put . just after find for searching inside current working directory. – Avinash Raj Apr 06 '14 at 11:16
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@AvinashRaj That would be redundant. As per `man find`: *If no paths are given, the current directory is used.* – n.st Apr 06 '14 at 15:10
@AvinashRaj Turns out the [POSIX](http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/009695399/utilities/find.html) specification for `find` actually *does* require a path. Defaulting to `.` is a modification added by GNU find. If this were [Unix.SE], I'd add that to my answer, but since Ubuntu comes with GNU find by default, I'd rather not confuse newcomers more than necessary. ;) – n.st Nov 15 '16 at 05:50

score 53 · Accepted Answer · answered Apr 05 '14 at 22:32

53

If they are in the same folder use * wildcard to achieve that:

rm *text*

Where text is string that filename contains.

answered Apr 05 '14 at 22:32

Michal Fudala

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Actually it's not one directory but I can do that by one by for now. Thank you! – Ibrahim Mumcu Apr 05 '14 at 22:41
it helps, thank you :D – Spring Jul 27 '20 at 11:27
I kept getting permission denied with this command, even using `sudo`. the `find` command below did work though. – TetraDev Oct 26 '20 at 17:34
Did the Trick, Thank you! – Code Cooker Dec 24 '21 at 17:45
You can do `rm **/*text*` to delete filenames containing `text` in all subdirectories. – AlienKevin Jan 26 '23 at 15:58

score 2 · Answer 3 · answered Feb 06 '18 at 16:11

find . -type f -name '*[0-9]x[0-9]*' -delete

Run this in the parent directory. This is going to delete all files that have a digit followed by an 'x' character followed by another digit in their name.

Still be careful, this might delete original files too, if their name contains the above pattern (unlikely). Run it first without '-delete' to see if you have any files that have such a name. If that's the case, you'll just need to find a more restrictive pattern.

score 1 · Answer 4 · edited Jun 02 '20 at 17:00

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I found out, that if you want to delete a directory which starts with a specific letter, you can use the next command:

Let's say you have created the next folders:

Baka
baka
Aka

rm -rf B* b*

This will delete all directories starting with those letters (uppercase B and lowercase b).

After executing this command, you will only keep the folder named Aka. You can check it using ls to list the remaining folders in the current directory.

edited Jun 02 '20 at 17:00

Eliah Kagan

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answered Jun 02 '20 at 16:24

Szczepan

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Just remember to add `-rf` to your command, or you will end with empty directories. `rm B* b* -r` removes all the contents inside every single directory starting with `B` and `b`. But if you wish to remove the whole directory and its contents, you should use the `-f` flag to instruct `rm` to also "force" delete the directory. Please see `man rm` or `rm --help` for further information. – Geppettvs D'Constanzo Jun 02 '20 at 17:02

score 1 · Answer 5 · edited Sep 04 '16 at 05:57

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Try this:

rm -rf 12_angry_men_lone_holdout-*

This will keep 12_angry_men_lone_holdout.jpg and remove files with dimensions (290x166)

And please remember

rm -rf 12_angry_men_lone_holdout.*

will delete the default file too, that you needed.

edited Sep 04 '16 at 05:57

edwinksl

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answered Sep 04 '16 at 04:28

Aneesh

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Delete all files whose filenames contain a particular string?

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