Shell error 'bash: /bin/rm: Argument list too long' (also for cp, mv, ls, grep, tar with a * glob, or 'OSError: [Errno 7] Argument list too long' / E2BIG from subprocess). How do I fix it?

Cause: the shell expands a glob like * into every matching file name before running the command, and the kernel limits the total size of the arguments plus environment passed to a new program (execve fails with E2BIG). On Linux the limit is derived from the stack size limit (a quarter of the soft stack limit, with other caps), and a single argument is also limited in length. Folders with tens of thousands of files, or very large environment variables, hit it. It's not specific to rm; anything launched with a huge argument list fails the same way, including from Python subprocess, Node child_process or a Makefile. How to check: getconf ARG_MAX shows the limit; ls | wc -l shows how many names a glob would expand to. Fix (pick what fits): 1. Let find do the work without building a huge list: find . -maxdepth 1 -name '*.log' -delete (or -type f to limit to files). Check the match first by running it without -delete. 2. Batch with find and xargs, safe for spaces and newlines in names: find . -maxdepth 1 -name '*.log' -print0 | xargs -0 rm --. xargs splits the list into runs that fit the limit. 3. Or let find batch it: find . -maxdepth 1 -name '*.log' -exec rm -- {} + 4. Remove the whole folder when that's what you want: rm -r dirname (it walks the directory itself). 5. For tar, cp and similar, pass a directory instead of a glob, or feed a file list: tar -czf out.tgz --files-from=list.txt (generate list.txt with find). 6. In scripts and programs, don't pass thousands of paths on one command line: loop in batches, or use the language's own file functions (for example Python's pathlib / os.remove in a loop). 7. If the environment is huge (giant exported variables), trim it; it counts against the same limit. Don't raise the stack limit as the first fix; batching is reliable everywhere. Verify: the command finishes without the error, and ls | wc -l (or find . -name '*.log' | wc -l) shows the expected result. Sources: https://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man2/execve.2.html https://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man1/xargs.1.html https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/faq/coreutils-faq.html