LOW risk. Refuses to delete non-empty directories, so it is safe by design.

rmdir

Q: What does rmdir do?

Remove empty directories Deletes directories only if they are empty — a safer alternative to rm -r when you expect nothing to be inside.

Remove empty directories

low risk

interactive breakdown — edit the command and press Explain

What it does

Deletes directories only if they are empty — a safer alternative to rm -r when you expect nothing to be inside.

Common flags

Flag	Meaning
`-p`	Remove parent directories too if they become empty
`--ignore-fail-on-non-empty` `--ignore-fail-on-non-empty`	Do not complain about non-empty directories

Examples

rmdir buildRemove an empty directory · explain & risk-check →

rmdir -p a/b/cRemove c, then b and a if empty · explain & risk-check →

Pro tip

Prefer rmdir over rm -r when the directory should be empty — it fails loudly if it is not.

rm mkdir find

Open the full explainer →More in Files & Archives

Reference text is hand-written and may be incomplete — check man rmdir for your version. Test destructive commands on a non-production system first.