Trash management

To prevent accidental deletion of files, you can use a trash can. To ensure compatibility between multiple applications, you can use software (CLI, GUI or Library) that follow the FreeDesktop.org's Trash specification.

Note: Some applications can use a trash can per filesystem (see the specification)

Warning: When deleting files on another filesystem, usage of a trash can induce some latency because the files will be transferred between filesystems. In this case, you might want to use a implementation that create a trash folder per filesystem (See Trash directories in the specification).

Trash creation

• glib2 provides a gio trash file... command to move files into the trash, while gio trash --empty empties the trash. See also "trash" in gio(1) § COMMANDS.
• kde-cli-tools provides a kioclient5 command that can be used as kioclient5 move file trash:/ to move file to the trash.
• trash-cli — A command-line interface implementing FreeDesktop.org's Trash specification.

https://github.com/andreafrancia/trash-cli || trash-cli

• bashtrash — Freedesktop-compliant trashcan implemented in bash script.

https://github.com/robrwo/bashtrash/blob/master/trash || bashtrash^AUR

• trashman — A Python trash manager.

https://github.com/Kwpolska/trashman || trashman^AUR

• rmtrash — trash-put made compatible to GNUs rm and rmdir.

https://github.com/PhrozenByte/rmtrash || rmtrash^AUR

Trash space usage management

To prevent the trash can from using too much space, you can empty it yourself, or have a pruning policy

Software list

• autotrash — Tool to automatically purge old trashed files

https://github.com/bneijt/autotrash || autotrash^AUR

Criteria

• make sure to have at least x MB of free space
• delete files older than x days
• only empty if you have less than x MB of free space (useful in combination of previous criteria)
• maximum trash can size
• file size
• file type
• original path

Automation

To automate emptying the trash can, you can use cron, systemd/Timers, or inotify (using inotify, only new deletion would trigger the trash can automation)

Troubleshooting

Unable to find or create trash directory

External drives

/etc/fstab might not be set correctly. Note that ID must be replaced by your own user id by $ id.

/etc/fstab

# <device>                                <dir>              <type>    <options>         <dump> <fsck>
UUID=75667752-8b06-11ea-bc55-0242ac130003 /externalDrive     ntfs-3g   defaults,uid=ID   0      1

Make sure that the root directory of the drive contains ~/.Trash-1000/{expunged,files,info} and set relevant read permissions for the directory and sub-directory.