Linux: Bash Delete All Files In Directory Except Few

http://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/linux-bash-delete-all-files-in-directory-except-few

I'm a new Linux system user. I need to cleanup in a download directory i.e. delete all files from ~/Downloads/ folders except the following types:

*.iso - All iso images files.
*.zip - All zip files.
How do I delete all file except some in bash shell on a Linux, OS X or Unix-like systems?

Bash shell supports rich file pattern matching such as follows:

Tutorial details
Difficulty	Easy (rss)
Root privileges	No
Requirements	Bash
Estimated completion time	2m

• * - Match any files.
• ? - Matches any single character in filenames.
• [...] - Matches any one of the enclosed characters.

Method #1: Say hello to extended pattern matching operators

You need to use the extglob shell option using the shopt builtin command to use extended pattern matching operators such as:

1. ?(pattern-list) - Matches zero or one occurrence of the given patterns.
2. *(pattern-list) - Matches zero or more occurrences of the given patterns.
3. +(pattern-list) - Matches one or more occurrences of the given patterns.
4. @(pattern-list) - Matches one of the given patterns.
5. !(pattern-list) - Matches anything except one of the given patterns.

A pattern-list is nothing but a list of one or more patterns (filename) separated by a |. First, turn on extglob option:

 
shopt -s extglob
 

Bash remove all files except *.zip and *.iso files

The rm command syntax is:

## Delete all file except file1 ##
rm  !(file1)
 
## Delete all file except file1 and file2 ##
rm  !(file1|file2)
 
## Delete all file except all zip files ##
rm  !(*.zip)
 
## Delete all file except all zip and iso files ##
rm  !(*.zip|*.iso)
 
## You set full path too ##
rm /Users/vivek/!(*.zip|*.iso|*.mp3)
 
## Pass options ##
rm [options]  !(*.zip|*.iso)
rm -v  !(*.zip|*.iso)
rm -f  !(*.zip|*.iso)
rm -v -i  !(*.php)
 

Finally, turn off extglob option:

 
shopt -u extglob
 

Method #2: Using bash GLOBIGNORE variable to remove all files except specific ones

From the bash(1) page:

A colon-separated list of patterns defining the set of filenames to be ignored by pathname expansion. If a filename matched by a pathname expansion pattern also matches one of the patterns in GLOBIGNORE, it is removed from the list of matches.

To delete all files except zip and iso files, set GLOBIGNORE as follows:

## only works with BASH ##
cd ~/Downloads/
GLOBIGNORE=*.zip:*.iso
rm -v *
unset GLOBIGNORE
 

Method #3: Find command to rm all files except zip and iso files

If you are using tcsh/csh/sh/ksh or any other shell, try the following find command syntax on a Unix-like system to delete files:

 
find /dir/ -type f -not -name 'PATTERN' -delete
 

OR

## deals with weird file names using xargs ##
find /dir/ -type f -not -name 'PATTERN' -print0 | xargs -0 -I {} rm {}
find /dir/ -type f -not -name 'PATTERN' -print0 | xargs -0 -I {} rm [options] {}
 

To delete all files except php files in ~/sources/ directory, type:

 
find ~/sources/ -type f -not -name '*.php' -delete
 

OR

 
find ~/sources/ -type f -not -name '*.php' -print0 | xargs -0 -I {} rm -v {}
 

The syntax to delete all files except *.zip and *.iso is as follows:

 
find . -type f -not \( -name '*zip' -or -name '*iso' \) -delete
 

For more information see bash command man page and find command man page.