trash-rm

trash-rm is a cli tool that creates its own trash directory and moves files and directories there instead of deleting them permanently.

Inspiration

This project is inspired by trash-cli, created by Andrea Francia.

The goal of trash-rm is not to replace the original project. Instead, it was created as a learning exercise to study the core idea behind the tool and build a new implementation from scratch based on that understanding.

Requirements

• gcc >= 16.1 OR clang >= 19.1.7
• Tested on:
  • Ubuntu 24.04 LTS
  • FreeBSD 15.1-RELEASE

Installation

git clone https://github.com/wiirios/trash-rm.git
cd trash-rm

sudo make install

sudo make uninstall

Usage

Below are all the available commands.

trash-rm move           trash the file.
trash-rm list           lists the files in the trash.
trash-rm match-move     move a file with a pattern.
trash-rm clean          empty the trash.
trash-rm remove         remove a file from the trash.
trash-rm recover        recovers a file from the trash.

Examples

Move a single file to the trash:

trash-rm move notes.txt

Move all files ending with .txt

trash-rm match-move *.txt

Removes a specific file from the trash.

trash-rm remove min.c

Recover a file from the trash.

trash-rm recover bump.mp4

Timestamp

trash-rm uses timestamps to track when files were moved to the trash. Each file in the trash receives a timestamp that is appended to its name.

Customizing the format

To change the timestamp format, you need to modify the TIMESTAMP_FORMAT constant in the include/timestamp.h file:

// You can use any combination involving the day, month, and year.
#define TIMESTAMP_FORMAT "DDMMYYYY"

After changing the format, recompile the project:

sudo make uninstall
 
sudo make install

TODO

Planned improvements and missing features:

• Add better logging.
• Create a function to recover all files from the Trash bin.

Project status

This project is still under active development and is not recommended for production use. If you choose to try it, please restrict your tests to the test folder and use it with caution.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome. If you find a bug, have an improvement idea, or want to help with documentation and features, feel free to open an issue or submit a pull request.

MIT License

This project is licensed under MIT license, read more at docs.github