Automatically Delete Old Files From The Trash Using Autotrash

Reading my daily Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Meerkat development emails, I noticed a new package in the repositories: it's called Autotrash and it can delete files in your trash when they become older than a given number of days, purge older files to ensure a specific amount of disk space is free and some other options. Looking at my computer's trash and noticing around 400 files, I instantly installed Autotrash. This way I'll never forget to empty my trash.

Using Autotrash:

• 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 (where 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 (where M is the amount of free space left, in megabytes)
• Delete regex matching files first: see the "--delete-first option"

Fore more info, run:

autotrash --help

If you're already running Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Meerkat, you can search for "autotrash" in the Ubuntu Software Center and install it. For Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx and Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala, we've backported the Maverick package so you can install it via the WebUpd8 PPA:

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

Or manually download it:

• Lucid: autotrash_0.1.1-1~webupd8~lucid_all.deb (8.8 KiB)
• Karmic: autotrash_0.1.1-1~webupd8~karmic_all.deb (8.8 KiB)

If you're not using Ubuntu, see the Autotrash download page.

See also: Make "rm" Move Files To Trash Instead Of Completely Removing Them