rm

destructive

Deletes a file or a directory tree on the device.

Command: adb shell rm
Commands: Files and storage
Risk: destructive

Syntax

rm [-f] [-r] <path>
rmdir <path>

Flags and arguments

Token	Meaning
-f	Do not prompt. This is about hanging, not sloppiness: the legacy shell service gives the command a terminal, so a write-protected file triggers a prompt nobody can answer.
-r	Recurse into a directory. The dangerous one.
rmdir	Remove a directory only if it is empty. Safer than `rm -rf` for a folder a scan called empty minutes ago.

Examples

```
rm -f '/sdcard/Download/old installer.apk'
```
One file, single-quoted so the space stays part of the name.
```
rmdir '/sdcard/Android/data/com.gone.app'
```
An empty leftover directory, with the emptiness verified by the device.
```
rm -rf '/sdcard/Android/data/com.gone.app'
```
The same directory and everything in it. Check the package is really gone first.

Reading the output

Nothing on success. A refusal is printed — `Permission denied`, `Directory not empty` from `rmdir`, `No such file or directory` without `-f` — and that text is the whole message.

Output fields

Field	Meaning
(no output)	The path is gone.
rmdir: … Directory not empty	Something appeared since you last looked. Deliberately not swallowed.
Permission denied	The shell user may not write there.

What it changes, and the way back

Android has no trash can and no undo. A deleted photo is gone, and a `-r` aimed at the wrong directory takes everything under it. Delete one exact path per command — never a wildcard, never a directory you have not just listed — and prefer `rmdir` for something you believe is empty, because it *fails* if it is not. There is no way back from this command; the only protection is the path you type.

Version and vendor notes

Single-quote every path. Inside single quotes a space, `&`, `$`, a backtick and a semicolon are all literal bytes, and real files on a phone are called things like `Rock & Roll.mp3`. The one character single quotes cannot carry is an apostrophe.
One path per command. A batched delete reports a single exit status for many files, so a partial failure is invisible.
Deleting per-app directories under shared storage does not uninstall anything and does not free the app's own private data; it removes the copy that lives on shared storage.

We have a UI for this

Android Storage Analyzer runs this command over USB and parses what comes back — a Chromium browser, no SDK, nothing uploaded.

Open Android Storage Analyzer

Related commands

Commands that turn up in the same session as rm.

Command	What it does
find	Walks a directory tree and prints what matches — big files, empty folders, leftovers.
du	Reports how much disk space a directory tree occupies.
screenrecord	Records the screen to an MP4 file on the device.
pm install	Installs one APK that is already on the device, which is what `adb install` does under the hood.

More Files and storage commands

Command	What it does
df	Reports free and used space per mounted filesystem.

Checked against AOSP, toybox and kernel sources while writing the parsers behind our Web ADB tools. Where a behaviour genuinely varies by Android version or manufacturer, this page says so instead of giving a number that would be wrong on half the phones out there.

Frequently asked questions

How do I run an adb shell command?

Switch on developer options and USB debugging on the phone, plug it in, then run `adb shell <command>` from a machine with platform-tools installed — or run `adb shell` on its own to get an interactive prompt and type the command without the prefix. If the command produces binary output, such as a screenshot, use `adb exec-out` instead of `adb shell`: the plain shell service attaches a terminal, which rewrites newline bytes and corrupts the data.

Do adb shell commands need root?

Not the ones on this reference. They run as the `shell` user, which can manage packages for its own Android user, read most `dumpsys` services, write the settings provider, inject input and read shared storage. Root is only needed for things this reference deliberately avoids — reading another app's private data (except through `run-as` on a debuggable build), writing system partitions, or reading `/data/anr` directly.

Why does the output look different on my phone?

Either the Android version or the manufacturer. Some flags and fields arrived in a specific release, and those are noted per command. The rest is OEM patching, which hits `dumpsys` hardest: a dump is debug output whose text is whatever the service author last printed, and manufacturers change it and backport their changes. Read fields by name rather than by position, and treat an unfamiliar shape as a difference rather than as a failure.

Can I run this from a browser instead of a terminal?

For many commands, yes — the Web ADB tools on this site talk to a phone over WebUSB from a Chromium-based desktop browser, with no SDK installed and nothing uploaded. Each page links to the tool that runs its command, when one exists. Two limits are worth knowing: only one program can hold the ADB interface at a time, so a desktop `adb server` has to be stopped first, and `adb forward` and `adb reverse` cannot work in a browser at all.

Would rather click than type? The Web ADB Toolkit runs commands like this from a browser over USB. Or browse every command.