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. The gvfs package is required to fully support trash management through the gio trash command.
  • kde-cli-tools provides a kioclient5 command that can be used as to move to the trash.
  • trash-cli — A command-line interface implementing FreeDesktop.org's Trash specification.
https://github.com/andreafrancia/trash-cli || trash-cli
  • rmtrash — trash-put made compatible to GNUs rm and rmdir.
https://github.com/PhrozenByte/rmtrash || rmtrashAUR

    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

      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

      External drives

       
      might not be set correctly. Note that  must be replaced by your own user id by .

      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.

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