trash-cli: Would you like a safety net with that?

I like to live life dangerously. When I delete something, it’s gone forever. No trash cans for me. No recycle bins, .local/share/trash or anything wimpy like that. I like my files deleted with extreme prejudice. 😎

For those still going through life with training wheels, you might consider trash-cli.

I’m kidding. The real benefit to using trash-cli, as I can see it, is that it gives you practical access to the same trash systems that most graphical desktops use.

Supposedly, this should mesh nicely with the Gnome, KDE or XFCE trash protocols, although I am not about to install three different desktops just to see if it’s true or not.

For me, it’s an odd idea to think that you would need trash-cli if one of those desktops is already installed, but I’m all for following standards, and just rm isn’t really meant to play well with the FreeDesktop.org style.

trash-cli does a lot of things right, too. There are separate mini-commands for listing the files in the trash, a dedicated “interface” for restoring files, and a lot of flags that are backward-compatible with rm. It certainly shows a measure of forethought.

Of course, all that is lost on command-line kamikazes like me. We don’t need no stinking recycle bins. I hard-wired the rm command straight to shred. No turning back. Do it or don’t. Make up your mind, and live with it. Real men don’t use trash cans.

But they’ve had plenty of experience with these things.