Remove all files/directories except for one file

find . ! -name 'filetoexist.txt' -type f -exec rm -f {} +

will remove all files except filetoexist.txt. To remove directories, change -type f to -type d and add -r option to rm.

To exclude list of files: ! \( -name one_file -o -name two_file \)

In bash, to use rm !(file.txt), we will have to enable extglob:

$ shopt -s extglob
$ rm !(file.txt)

Note that extglob only works in bash and Korn shell family. And using rm !(file.txt) can cause an Argument list too long error.

In zsh, you can use ^ to negate pattern with extendedglob enabled:

$ setopt extendedglob
$ rm ^file.txt

or using the same syntax with ksh and bash with options ksh_glob and no_bare_glob_qual enabled.