How do I remove a symlink?

Question

i just created the symlink sudo ln -s /usr/local/mysql/lib/libmysqlclient.18.dylib /usr/lib/libmysqlclient.18.dylib and am wondering how i get rid of it if I wanted to. How would i do this?

Answer 1

Remove it just like you would any other file: rm /usr/lib/libmysqlclient.18.dylib. rm will remove the symlink itself, not the file the link is pointing at.

Answer 2

You can use the unlink command: unlink /path/to/sym/link

Deleting the file within Finder also works fine, it will have a little shortcut icon on it.

Answer 3

Just run:

rm /usr/lib/libmysqlclient.18.dylib

This will remove the file (i.e. the symlink).

Alternatively you may use unlink:

unlink /usr/lib/libmysqlclient.18.dylib

Answer 4

I had a link pointing to a folder with short-name "testproject": you make that with this command

ln -s /Users/SHERIF/repo/test  testproject

I had to change the folder name to something else for some reasons when I run the command unlink pointing to the old folder directory it didn't work.

I tried to only unlink testproject to remove the short-name so I can re-use the same name again and link to the newly named folder. it did work fine for me.

Answer 5

Somehow I had a symlink to a non-existing folder. Have no idea how it happened but to remove it I found the easiest way was open in finder and manually delete it. I came to this decision after an hour wasted on trying to delete it with the Terminal.

Answer 6

You could remove that link with sudo rm /usr/lib/libmysqlclient.18.dylib

Answer 7

To remove a symlink, you can use the unlink command in the terminal. For example, if the symlink is called mysymlink, the command would be unlink mysymlink.