How to delete files matching linux command output

Question

I have a list of files which I got using find / -type f -size +10M -exec ls -l {} \; I got this command from here

How can I remove all these files ?

I tried

sudo rm `find / -type f -size +10M -exec ls -l {} \;`

but it doesn't work.

Also, what does {} \ do ? And what's the use of -exec in this command, will the pipe operator not work ?

As for your problem, why don't you have find execute rm for you instead of ls? — Some programmer dude
– Some programmer dude, Commented Sep 27, 2017 at 7:19
'{}' is the placeholder for the exec command (it works a bit like xargs). It is replaced by the file name found for every new file meeting requirements is found. \; is used with -exec option which denotes the termination of exec. — rdt
– rdt, Commented Sep 27, 2017 at 7:28

AcId · Accepted Answer · 2017-09-27 07:35:18Z

1

I think it should be possible to have find run rm on each file found, but I couldn't get it to work.

So here is my solution using a for loop:

for $f in `find / -type f -size +10M`;do rm $f;done

answered Sep 27, 2017 at 7:35

AcId

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2 Comments

Outch! find / -type f -size +10M -exec sudo rm '{}' +

@ceving the + did the trick for me. When I tried ending the command with \; it just kept saying "missing argument to `-exec'

mrid · Accepted Answer · 2017-09-27 08:26:00Z

0

Thanks guys, I finally got it to work with @some-programmer-dude suggestion:

find / -type f -size +10M -exec rm {} \;

answered Sep 27, 2017 at 8:26

mrid

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