Just call me the tweaker!

While that double-bracketed test [[ -e $file ]] eliminates the need to quote the $file variable,
elsewhere in the do loop quotes will likely be needed. So rm -rf $file should be rm -rf "$file"
OTOH, the quotes where list was defined aren't needed: list=$HOME/Desktop/*

Of course, that script (as written anyway) simply deletes everything there,
so it could be shortened by eliminating the looping and testing altogether:

rm -rf ~/Desktop/*

but that won't notify us if the Desktop was empty (of visible items).

ok tweaker

Ah you are right the only time I need to quote it is if there are multiple paths to a variable...I think.

More along the lines of: "are there spaces in any file's pathname, or not?"
Essentially, we should *always* ensure they are accounted for... somehow.

In the [[ ]] form of test, the shell provides quoting behind the scenes.
Another method is using the ability of some commands to append null
chars (or accept null chars) as the 'filename delimiter'. Most common
being: find blah blah -print0 |xargs -0 blah

We also had a thread somewhere where we removed the 'space' from
the IFS variable (so that newlines became the main delimiter).

tell application "Finder"

try

delete (every item of folder "Desktop" of folder "user" of folder "Users" of folder "Macintosh HD")

end try

try

delete (every item of folder "Documents" of folder "user" of folder "Users" of folder "Macintosh HD")

end try

try

delete (every item of folder "Downloads" of folder "user" of folder "Users" of folder "Macintosh HD")

end try

empty trash

end tell

i like this script, how can i modify it to select all user except administrator to replace "user" in this scriopt.

how to select all users except administrator without having to type all the users name under "user" in this script?