Command Line Delete All Directories Except One

On the Mac OS X bash command line, you can delete all directories, with the exception of one, in the following way.

If our current directory has sub-directories and we want to delete all of them except, ./really-important-do-not-delete, we can run

$ shopt -s extglob
$ rm -rf !(really-important-do-not-delete)
$ ls
really-important-do-not-delete
$

original source

Sal Ferrarello (@salcode)

Sal is a PHP developer with a focus on the WordPress platform. He is a conference speaker with a background including Piano Player, Radio DJ, Magician/Juggler, Beach Photographer, and High School Math Teacher. Sal can be found professionally at WebDevStudios, where he works as a senior backend engineer.