how can I recursively delete empty directories in my home directory?
The find
command is the primary tool for recursive file system operations. Use the -type d
expression to tell find
you’re interested in finding directories only (and not plain files). The GNU version of find
supports the -empty
test, so
$ find . -type d -empty -print
will print all empty directories below your current directory.
Use find ~ -…
or find "$HOME" -…
to base the search on your home directory (if it isn’t your current directory).
After you’ve verified that this is selecting the correct directories, use -delete
to delete all matches:
$ find . -type d -empty -delete