try this instead
Are you getting: rm * -bash: /usr/bin/rm: Argument list too long Try this: find . -iname '*' | xargs rm Or this (if you want to do it nicely): nice -n19 ionice -c2 -n7 find . -iname '*' | xargs nice -n19 ionice -c3 -n7 rm -rfv
Drop the v if you don't want to see output.