rclone/docs/content/commands/rclone_delete.md

title	description	versionIntroduced
rclone delete	Remove the files in path.	v1.27

rclone delete

Remove the files in path.

Synopsis

Remove the files in path. Unlike purge it obeys include/exclude filters so can be used to selectively delete files.

rclone delete only deletes files but leaves the directory structure alone. If you want to delete a directory and all of its contents use the purge command.

If you supply the --rmdirs flag, it will remove all empty directories along with it. You can also use the separate command rmdir or rmdirs to delete empty directories only.

For example, to delete all files bigger than 100 MiB, you may first want to check what would be deleted (use either):

rclone --min-size 100M lsl remote:path
rclone --dry-run --min-size 100M delete remote:path

Then proceed with the actual delete:

rclone --min-size 100M delete remote:path

That reads "delete everything with a minimum size of 100 MiB", hence delete all files bigger than 100 MiB.

Important: Since this can cause data loss, test first with the --dry-run or the --interactive/-i flag.

rclone delete remote:path [flags]

Options

  -h, --help     help for delete
      --rmdirs   rmdirs removes empty directories but leaves root intact

Options shared with other commands are described next. See the global flags page for global options not listed here.

Important Options

Important flags useful for most commands

  -n, --dry-run         Do a trial run with no permanent changes
  -i, --interactive     Enable interactive mode
  -v, --verbose count   Print lots more stuff (repeat for more)

Filter Options

Flags for filtering directory listings

      --delete-excluded                     Delete files on dest excluded from sync
      --exclude stringArray                 Exclude files matching pattern
      --exclude-from stringArray            Read file exclude patterns from file (use - to read from stdin)
      --exclude-if-present stringArray      Exclude directories if filename is present
      --files-from stringArray              Read list of source-file names from file (use - to read from stdin)
      --files-from-raw stringArray          Read list of source-file names from file without any processing of lines (use - to read from stdin)
  -f, --filter stringArray                  Add a file filtering rule
      --filter-from stringArray             Read file filtering patterns from a file (use - to read from stdin)
      --ignore-case                         Ignore case in filters (case insensitive)
      --include stringArray                 Include files matching pattern
      --include-from stringArray            Read file include patterns from file (use - to read from stdin)
      --max-age Duration                    Only transfer files younger than this in s or suffix ms|s|m|h|d|w|M|y (default off)
      --max-depth int                       If set limits the recursion depth to this (default -1)
      --max-size SizeSuffix                 Only transfer files smaller than this in KiB or suffix B|K|M|G|T|P (default off)
      --metadata-exclude stringArray        Exclude metadatas matching pattern
      --metadata-exclude-from stringArray   Read metadata exclude patterns from file (use - to read from stdin)
      --metadata-filter stringArray         Add a metadata filtering rule
      --metadata-filter-from stringArray    Read metadata filtering patterns from a file (use - to read from stdin)
      --metadata-include stringArray        Include metadatas matching pattern
      --metadata-include-from stringArray   Read metadata include patterns from file (use - to read from stdin)
      --min-age Duration                    Only transfer files older than this in s or suffix ms|s|m|h|d|w|M|y (default off)
      --min-size SizeSuffix                 Only transfer files bigger than this in KiB or suffix B|K|M|G|T|P (default off)

Listing Options

Flags for listing directories

      --default-time Time   Time to show if modtime is unknown for files and directories (default 2000-01-01T00:00:00Z)
      --fast-list           Use recursive list if available; uses more memory but fewer transactions

See Also

• rclone - Show help for rclone commands, flags and backends.