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 command that can be used as kioclient5 move file trash:/ 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

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 ID 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.