RMDIR(1) General Commands Manual RMDIR(1)

rmdirremove directories

rmdir [-pv] directory ...

The rmdir utility removes the directory entry specified by each directory argument, provided it is empty.

Arguments are processed in the order given. In order to remove both a parent directory and a subdirectory of that parent, the subdirectory must be specified first so the parent directory is empty when rmdir tries to remove it.

The following option is available:

Each directory argument is treated as a pathname of which all components will be removed, if they are empty, starting with the last most component. (See rm(1) for fully non-discriminant recursive removal.)
Be verbose, listing each directory as it is removed.

The rmdir utility exits with one of the following values:

Each directory entry specified by a directory operand referred to an empty directory and was removed successfully.
An error occurred.

Remove the directory foobar, if it is empty:

$ rmdir foobar

Remove all directories up to and including cow, stopping at the first non-empty directory (if any):

$ rmdir -p cow/horse/monkey

rm(1)

The rmdir utility is expected to be IEEE Std 1003.2 (“POSIX.2”) compatible.

A rmdir command appeared in Version 1 AT&T UNIX.

May 31, 1993 Mac OS X 12