Hasn’t everybody deleted some stuff in the command line, wishing they had a way to get it back? Well, by default there are no do-overs. That’s where rmw comes in: rmw creates a trash can for your command line, so even after you delete some files (as long as you use it), you should be able to get them back within your specified period of time.
It’s a semi-compatible drop-in replacement for rm that should leave you feeling more at home than the alternatives – I checked out at least 7 of them, and this appeared to be the most developed and supported out of all the ones I tried. And while rmw doesn’t (yet) support viewing, deleting, and otherwise co-mingling files with your desktop trash, you can at least keep them all in the same place to avoid confusion.
For me, setup went something like this …
# Set your environment variables (ephemeral and persistent):
$ export RMW_CONF_DIR="$HOME/.config/rmw"
$ echo 'export RMW_CONF_DIR="$HOME/.config/rmw"' >> $HOME/.zshrc # or .bashrc
# Create your configuration directory and go there:
$ mkdir -p $RMW_CONF_DIR
$ cd $RMW_CONF_DIR
# now this is a little weird - rmwrc has to be $CONFIG/rmwrc, but it keeps
two files for configuration in $RMW_CONF_DIR
Set up your config:
# auto-create the config with rmw:
$ rmw --config $RMW_CONF_DIR/rmwrcThe auto-created configuration has these defaults, but the Waste directory seemed a little redundant to me
$ cat rmwrc
# rmw default waste directory, separate from the desktop trash
WASTE = $HOME/.local/share/Waste
# The directory used by the FreeDesktop.org Trash spec
# Note to macOS and Windows users: moving files to 'Desktop' trash
# doesn't work yet
# WASTE=$HOME/.local/share/Trash
# A folder can use the $UID variable.
# See the README or man page for details about using the 'removable' attribute
# WASTE=/mnt/flash/.Trash-$UID, removable
# How many days should items be allowed to stay in the waste
# directories before they are permanently deleted
#
# use '0' to disable purging (can be overridden by using --purge=N_DAYS)
#
expire_age = 0
# purge is allowed to run without the '-f' option. If you'd rather
# require the use of '-f', you may uncomment the line below.
#
# force_requiredSo I switched the commenting to use the desktop trash location instead of the new one rmw uses by default:
# Change configuration to reflect freedesktop (gnome, etc.) default trash location:
$ sed -i 's|# WASTE=$HOME/.local/share/Trash|WASTE=$HOME/.local/share/Trash|g' $RMW_CONF_DIR/rmwrc
$ sed -i 's|WASTE = $HOME/.local/share/Waste|# WASTE = $HOME/.local/share/Waste|g' $RMW_CONF_DIR/rmwrc
$ cat $RMW_CONF_DIR/rmwrc
# rmw default waste directory, separate from the desktop trash
# WASTE = $HOME/.local/share/Waste
# The directory used by the FreeDesktop.org Trash spec
# Note to macOS and Windows users: moving files to 'Desktop' trash
# doesn't work yet
WASTE=$HOME/.local/share/Trash
Also, I’d like it to empty itself after a month so I can’t forget to do it myself:
# set 30 day retention policy:
$ sed -i 's|expire_age = 0|expire_age = 30|g' $RMW_CONF_DIR/rmwrc
$ cat $RMW_CONF_DIR/rmwrc | grep expire_age
expire_age = 30Lastly, I’d like to try it out in place of rm for a while and see how it goes…
alias rm=rmw Here’s the online manual: https://theimpossibleastronaut.com/rmw-website/
And the github repo: https://github.com/theimpossibleastronaut/rmw/
Hope it gets you out of a bind!
