Fastest Ways to Delete Hundreds of Thousands of Files on Linux

First, create 500,000 test files:

for i in $(seq 1 500000); do echo text >> $i.txt; done

1. rm time rm -f * The shell aborts with "argument list too long" and the command fails.

2. find with -exec time find ./ -type f -exec rm {} \; Execution takes about 43 minutes (49.86 s user, 1032.13 s system, total 43:19).

3. find with -delete time find ./ -type f -delete Completes in roughly 9 minutes (0.43 s user, 11.21 s system, total 9:13).

4. rsync

Create an empty directory blanktest and run: time rsync -a --delete blanktest/ test/ Finishes in about 0.59 s user, 7.86 s system, total 16.4 s.

5. Python script

import os, timeit

def main():
    for pathname, dirnames, filenames in os.walk('/home/username/test'):
        for filename in filenames:
            file = os.path.join(pathname, filename)
            os.remove(file)

if __name__ == '__main__':
    t = timeit.Timer('main()', 'from __main__ import main')
    print(t.timeit(1))

Runs in about 529 seconds (≈9 minutes).

6. Perl one‑liner

time perl -e 'for(<*>) { ((stat)[9] < (unlink)) }'

Finishes in roughly 1.28 s user, 7.23 s system, total 16.8 s.

Summary of results

rm – not usable for massive file counts.

find with -exec – ~43 minutes.

find with -delete – ~9 minutes.

rsync with --delete – ~16 seconds (fastest).

Perl one‑liner – ~16 seconds.

Python script – ~9 minutes.