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Thomas Jensen
Asked: 2012-06-02 00:53:27 +0800 CST

Delete files from trash after x days

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Is there any way to configure Ubuntu to permanently delete files from trash after a certain amount of time?

I don't get why that's not the default behavior in any major OS. I don't want to think about administrating my trash, but I don't want to accidentally delete something either. Am I the only one with that opinion?

trash

3 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    Use trash-cli Install trash-cli (click image to install or run sudo apt-get install trash-cli).

    Run trash-empty 30 to remove all files from trash which are older than 30 days. (You can change this number as you like.)

    To automate this, add a command to Startup Applications:

    enter image description here

    Please note: If you use older Ubuntu versions than 12.04, the command is empty-trash!

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  2. If you're on GNOME, there's now a feature for that! Go to Privacy in your settings and look under Purge Trash & Temporary Files.

    Purge trash

    More at https://help.gnome.org/users/gnome-help/stable/privacy-purge.html.en.

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  3. Try with Autotrash!

    Autotrash is a simple Python script comes with Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Meerkat which will purge files from your trash when they become older than a given days,purge older files to ensure a specific amount of disk space is free,etc.It uses the FreeDesktop.org Trash Info files included in the new GNOME system to find the correct files and the dates they where deleted.

    Features:

    • Remove files that are older then a given number of days (autotrash -d N,where N is the number of days)
    • Purge older files to ensure a specific amount of disk space is free (autotrash --min-free=M,M is the amount of free space you want to ensure you have, in megabytes.)
    • Check for remaining disk space, and only delete if you are running out (autotrash --max-free=M,M is the amount of free space left, in megabytes.)
    • Delete regex matching files first (see –delete-frist option)

    For more info,execute this in terminal:

    autotrash --help

    AutoTrash is already in Ubuntu 10.10′s repository,it can be installed from Ubuntu Software Center.For Ubuntu 10.04 and 9.10 user,install this from PPA:

    sudo add-apt-repository ppa:nilarimogard/webupd8
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install autotrash

    Info: http://www.logfish.net/pr/autotrash/

    Source: http://ubuntuguide.net/automatically-delete-files-older-than-n-days-from-trash-using-autotrash/

    For a different approach and a more comprehensive guide: http://helpdeskgeek.com/linux-tips/automatically-empty-the-trash-in-ubuntu/

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