rm deletes. There is no trash can.

One more command, and it's the one command in this chapter that needs real care. Not because it's hard. Because it's blunt.

rm

rm stands for "remove." It deletes a file:

rm notes.txt

notes.txt is gone. Here's the part that matters: it is gone gone. When you delete a file in your normal file window, it goes to the Trash or Recycle Bin, and you can fish it back out. rm does not do that. There is no trash can in the terminal. rm deletes the file for real, immediately, with no confirmation and no undo.

This is not a reason to be afraid of rm. It's a reason to read the line before you press enter. That's the whole safety rule:

Before you run rm, read what comes after it out loud. If you're not sure you want that exact thing gone forever, don't press enter.

Why it works this way

It's fair to ask why a tool would skip the safety net. The answer is the same theme as the whole chapter: the terminal is built for repeatable, scriptable work. A command that stopped to ask "are you sure?" every time couldn't be used to clean up a thousand files in one go. The terminal trusts you to mean what you typed. That trust is powerful and it's also why you read the line first.

What to actually do

For now, in this course, you'll rarely need rm. When you do:

• Delete one named file at a time: rm oldfile.txt. Specific, calm, easy to check.
• Be extra careful with *, a wildcard that means "everything matching." rm *.txt deletes every .txt file in the folder. That's a real tool, but it's not a lesson-three tool. Avoid * with rm until you're comfortable.
• If you ever feel unsure, run ls first to see exactly what's in the folder, then delete the one named thing you meant.

Respect rm, don't fear it. Read the line, then press enter.