CompTIA A+ Certification All-in-One Exam Guide

To delete all of the files in a directory, you can use this dangerous but useful
*.* wildcard (often pronounced “star-dot-star”):
del *.*
This is one of the few command-line commands that elicits a response—
but only in Windows. Upon receiving the del *.* command, Windows
responds with “Are you sure? (Y/N),” to which you respond with a Y or N.
Pressing y erases every file in the directory, so again, use *.* with care!
With Windows, we only use del to delete files; it will not remove
directories. Use rd to delete directories. In macOS and Linux, you can use the
rm command to delete both files and folders. Here’s an example of the rm
command using the –r switch to delete the folder Jedi as well as all of its
contents:
rm –r Jedi
The Windows rd command comes with a switch, /s, which makes it act
identically to the rm –r command:
rd /s Jedi
Clearly it can be very dangerous to use the rm and rd commands with
these switches. Use them carefully.
NOTE If you spend any time reading about macOS or Linux Terminal
commands online, you might see jokes involving the sudo rm –rf / command.
It tells the system to delete every file and folder on the computer’s hard drive!
The sudo portion means run this as root, rm means to delete, –r means to go
into every folder, f means to use force (in other words, delete it no matter
what), and finally the / points it at the root of the drive!
Copying and Moving Files