removing or clearing stack of popd/pushd paths

dirs -c is what you are looking for.

In order to both empty the stack and restore the working directory from the stack bottom, either:

• retrieve that directory from dirs, change to that directory, and than clear the stack:

  cd "$(dirs -l -0)" && dirs -c
  

  The -l option here will list full paths, to make sure we don't fail if we try to cd into ~, and the -0 retrieves the first entry from the stack bottom.

  @jw013 suggested making this command more robust, by avoiding path expansions:

  pushd -0 && dirs -c
  

• or, popd until you encounter an error (which is the status of a popd call when the directory stack is empty):

  while (( $? == 0 )); do popd; done