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I am trying to write a command to remove recursively several files with different extensions (*.extension1, *.extension2 etc) from the current directory and all its related sub-directories.

So far I got this command from another post but I couldn't workout how to adapt it to more than one file in the same command line:

find . -name "*.extension1" -type f -delete

Is it as simple as below?

find . -name "*.extension1";"*.extension2" -type f -delete

Just as a side note, these are all output files that I do not need, but not all are necessarily always output so some of the extensions might not be present. This is just as a general clean-up command.

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5 Answers 5

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find . \( -name "*.extension1" -o -name "*.extension2" \) -type f -delete

find Documents ( -name ".py" -o -name ".html" ) -exec file {} \;

OR

find . -regextype posix-egrep -regex ".*\.(extension1|extension2)$" -type f -delete
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9 Comments

Hello @BroSlow, I am not sure what exactly you are asking me. The first suggestion didn't work. The second one did.
@Fiztban i think BrowSlow asked me.
Sorry I just realised some files come out with extensions that are not predictable but before the extension is, example mpd2.xxxxxxxxx where xxx is a randomly generated output. Could you include a way to delete those or is it easier to have it as a second command?
@Fiztban So you say that extensions should be extensionsxxx right? and here xxx will any value.
@Fiztban if i understand correctly then your output files like *.check *.err and sometimes you got like mpd2.xxx_ext but here _ext is fixed and xxx have random value. am i right?
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Just add more options. A regex solution can also apply but this one's better and safer.

find . \( -name '*.ext1' -or -name '*.ext2' \) -type f -delete

Edit: You probably need -or as well. Before deleting, test it first without the -delete option. (2) Added a pair of () as suggested by gniourf_gniourf.

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6 Comments

Thank you for your response. The first iteration didn't work, trying again post edit.
Nope unfortunately it isn't working still. I also tried with "*.ext1"
@Fiztban Your find probably is not GNU based or is an older version. You can try other suggestions.
find . \(-name '*.ext1' -o -name '*.ext2' \) -type f -delete otherwise -type f -delete only applies to -name '*.ext2'. Note that -or is not POSIX. Use -o instead.
@gniourf_gniourf I see. Good suggestion. I actually tried it getting same output but never thought that it actually has a difference. Or should I say I forgot.
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Another solution using rm:

rm -rf ./**/*.{txt,nfo,jpg,jpeg,png,exe,url}

If you want to delete other files too for e.g. those starting with sample. just add that too:

rm -rf ./**/*.{txt,nfo,jpg,jpeg,png,exe,url} ./**/*/sample.*
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Maybe regexp will help you

find . -regextype posix-awk -regex "(.*.ext1|.*.ext2)" -type f -delete
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This simple command will delete all the files with extension1 and extension2 recursively in that directory. rm find . -name *.extension1 -o -name *.extentions2

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