Move files and delete directories with rsync?

From zany's comment to slm's answer (Move files and delete directories with rsync?) I would recommend these 2 commands as an answer:

rsync -av --ignore-existing --remove-source-files source/ destination/ && \
find source/ -depth -type d  -empty -exec rmdir "{}" \;

The advantage is, like zany said, there is still some danger involved in using rm -rf if you don't get it right or for beginners.

I added 2 options, -depth and -empty and while I am not sure if this is really necessary, it makes the 2nd command more portable for other situations and even more safe (it still does the right thing if some directories are not empty and starts removing from the deepest point in a directory tree)

I found this thread over on stackoverflow titled: Deleting folders with rsync “move”?, which is asking essentially the same question. One of the answers suggested doing the rsync in 2 commands since it appears there isn't a single command that can accomplish the move/remove of the files and the source directories.

$ rsync -av --ignore-existing --remove-source-files source/ destination/ && \
  rsync -av --delete `mktemp -d`/ source/ && rmdir source/

Alternatively you can do it using this command:

$ rsync -axvvES --remove-source-files source_directory /destination/ && \
  rm -rf source_directory

Not ideal but does the job.