How to Safely Delete Symbolic and Hard Links in Linux

What is a symbolic link?

A symbolic (or soft) link is a special file that acts as a shortcut pointing to another file or directory. It is created with ln -s and can be identified in ls -l output by the leading l permission character.

Deleting a symbolic link with rm

The generic rm command removes files and directories. To delete a single symlink, provide its path: rm symbolic_link_name Example:

$ ls -l
lrwxrwxrwx 1 user user 26 Oct 17 11:24 mylink -> ./Documents/sample-mark.md
$ rm mylink
$ ls -l

The target file remains untouched.

Removing multiple symbolic links at once

You can list several links after rm to delete them in one command:

rm symlink1 symlink2 symlink3

Using unlink to delete a symlink

The unlink command also removes a link, but it cannot handle multiple arguments and will delete a regular file if given its name:

unlink symbolic_link_name

Deleting a symlink that points to a directory

Even when the link points to a directory, you do **not** need the -r (recursive) option. Use the same rm syntax: rm dir_link_name Do not append a trailing slash; otherwise rm will treat it as a directory and refuse to delete it:

$ rm link_to_dir/</code>
<code>rm: cannot remove 'link_to_dir/': Is a directory

Deleting hard links

Hard links are indistinguishable from the original file except for their inode number. They are removed the same way as regular files:

rm hard_link_name

What happens when you delete a link file?

Removing a symlink does not affect the target file. If you need to delete the target as well, resolve the link first: rm "$(readlink '/path/to/link')" /path/to/link If the target is deleted but the link remains, the link becomes a dangling (broken) reference.

Best practice

Because rm is familiar and works for both files and links, it is generally recommended over unlink for removing symbolic links.