Version: 1.0-beta10
A wrapper for rm that adds more useful warnings and an optional recycle/trash mode
Can be used as a drop-in replacement for rm
on any Linux or MacOS system with
Python > 2.6. With no arguments or configuration, it will warn you if you delete
more than 3 files or any directories, and will print the files and folders to
delete to the console when prompting for approval (something rm -I
does not
do).
All rm
commands are implemented here. In addition, passing -c
will result in
files being trashed/recycled instead of deleted. Applescript is used on MacOS,
otherwise the best trash location is chosen (see below). Most files can be
restored using GUI tools (e.g. Nautilus/Finder), as the default Trash folders
and metadata are used (e.g. Put Back works on Mac).
Note: passing -s
will result in files being destroyed with shred
and will
forcibly override and disable recycle mode.
Ideally, this tool should be symlinked to rm
and the file ~/.rm_recycle_home
should be created, which will make recycling automatic only for files in your
home directory. This will provide a great deal of safety without majorly messing
up any sys-admin work.
Contents
Usage: careful_rm.py [-c] [-f | -i] [-dPRrvW] file .. Arguments --------- -c, --recycle move to trash instead of deleting (forced on by ~/.rm_recycle) -s, --shred run shred on all files (recursively if directories included) prior to deleting, override recycle --direct force off recycling, even if ~/.rm_recycle exists --dryrun do not actually remove or move files, just print -h, --help display this help and exit All other arguments passed to rm Common rm arguments ------------------- -f, --force ignore nonexistent files and arguments, never prompt -i prompt before every removal -I prompt once before removing more than three files, or when removing recursively -r, -R, --recursive remove directories and their contents recursively -d, --dir remove empty directories -v, --verbose explain what is being done For full help for rm, see `man rm`, note that only the '-i', '-f' and '-v' options have any meaning in recycle mode, which uses `mv`. Argument order does not matter.
- An
sh
style shell, preferablyzsh
,dash
, orbash
- Python version 2.6+, no additional modules required
It should work almost everywhere
Note: If anyone can help with a FISH and/or Windows version, that would be great
With any sh
like shell (sh
, bash
, fish
, zsh
)
cd ~
git clone git@github.com:MikeDacre/careful_rm.git
echo "source ~/careful_rm/careful_rm.alias.sh" >> .bashrc
The ZSH version of this plugin is provided by the careful_rm.plugin.zsh
file.
In addition to aliasing rm
to careful_rm
, it also sets a $TRASH
variable
that updates with every directory change and makes ~trash
a named directory
that points to $TRASH
.
ZSH offers some great ways to install as a plugin and stay up to date, my favorite is antigen, but any of the following methods will work.
If you're using Antigen, just add antigen
bundle MikeDacre/careful_rm
to your .zshrc
file where you're loading your
other zsh plugins. You will need to reload ZSH to install the plugin.
mkdir -p ~/oh-my-zsh/custom/plugins
cd ~/oh-my-zsh/custom/plugins
git clone git@github.com:MikeDacre/careful_rm.git
- add
plugins+=(careful_rm)
to the right place in your~/.zshrc
If you're using Zgen, add zgen load
MikeDacre/careful_rm
to your .zshrc
file where you're loading your other zsh
plugins.
If you want you can install the code directly and handle shell integration yourself. The project can be installed with either pip, or just by directly downloading the script.
To alias the code to rm yourself, you can download and source the
careful_rm.alias.sh
script, or just add something like this to your
~/.bashrc
.
if hash careful_rm.py 2>/dev/null; then
alias rm="$(command -v careful_rm.py)"
elif hash careful_rm 2>/dev/null; then
alias rm="$(command -v careful_rm)"
else
alias rm="rm -I"
fi
This project is on PyPI so you can just install it with pip, but you won't get any shell integration:
pip install careful_rm
You can just put it into your $PATH
and use it directly. e.g.:
cd /usr/local/bin
wget https://github.com/raw/MikeDacre/careful_rm/master/careful_rm.py
rm
is a powerful *nix tool that simply drops a file from the drive index. It
doesn't delete it or put it in a Trash can, it just de-indexes it which makes
the file hard to recover unless you want to put in the work, and pretty easy to
recover if you are willing to spend a few hours trying (use shred
to actually
secure erase files).
careful_rm.py
is inspired by the -I
interactive mode of rm
and by
safe-rm. safe-rm
adds a recycle
bin mode to rm, and the -I
interactive mode adds a prompt if you delete more
than a handful of files or recursively delete a directory. ZSH
also has an
option to warn you if you recursively rm a directory.
These are all great, but I found them unsatisfying. What I want is for rm to be
quick and not bother me for single file deletions (so rm -i
is out), but to
let me know when I am deleting a lot of files, and to actually print a list of
files that are about to be deleted. I also want it to have the option to
trash/recycle my files instead of just straight deleting them.... like
safe-rm
, but not so intrusive (safe-rm defaults to recycle, and doesn't warn).
careful_rm.py
is fundamentally a simple rm
wrapper, that accepts all of the
same commands as rm
, but with a few additional options features. In the source
code CUTOFF
is set to 3, so deleting more files than that will prompt the
user. Also, deleting a directory will prompt the user separately with a count of
all files and subdirectories within the folders to be deleted.
Furthermore, careful_rm.py
implements a fully integrated trash mode that can
be toggled on with -c
. It can also be forced on by adding a file at
~/.rm_recycle
, or toggled on only for $HOME
(the best idea), by
~/.rm_recycle_home
. The mode can be disabled on the fly by passing --direct
,
which forces off recycle mode.
The recycle mode tries to find the best location to recycle to on MacOS or
Linux, on MacOS it also tries to use Apple Script to trash files, which means
the original location is preserved (note Applescript can be slow, you can
disable it by adding a ~/.no_apple_rm
file, but Put Back won't work). The
best location for trashes goes in this order:
$HOME/.Trash
on Mac or$HOME/.local/share/Trash
on Linux<mountpoint>/.Trashes
on Mac or<mountpoint>/.Trash-$UID
on Linux/tmp/$USER_trash
Always the best trash can to avoid Volume hopping is favored, as moving across
file systems is slow. If the trash does not exist, the user is prompted to
create it, they then also have the option to fall back to the root trash
(/tmp/$USER_trash
) or just rm
the files.
/tmp/$USER_trash
is almost always used for deleting system/root files, but
note that you most likely do not want to save those files, and straight rm
is generally better.