Linux @lemmy.ml DeltaWingDragon @sh.itjust.works 5 mo. ago

Do all DEs store the trash in the same place?

On Cinnamon and LxQt, the trash is in ~/.local/share/Trash. Is it the same for all desktop environments?

12 comments

${XDG_DATA_HOME}/Trash is fairly common and afaik the default in Gnome and KDE

FreeDesktop.org trash spec
- OK, got it
  
  Also fyi there's trash-cli
  
  I have rm aliased to trash-rm (not in sudo tho, so I can still force true deletion), so that if I remove something in terminal it also goes to trash.
  
  You can empty the trash via trash-empty
  
  It also uses ${XDG_DATA_HOME}/Trash (usually ~/.local/share/Trash)
Be aware that for some removable (or otherwise non-local) media, some systems will create a .Trash-### directory on the media itself in the root directory.

This prevents unnecessary copying of files from the media to a local disk, and only a few media-specific location indicators actually need to be changed for the Trashed file(s).

The ### is generally the user's ID number as stored in /etc/passwd, and, on Debian derivatives at least, is usually 1000 for the first user, 1001 for the second, etc., but I have heard of some systems that just use .Trash with no suffix, or did so at some point in the past.
May I know why did you ask this?

Edit: Why didnt people like this comment lol
- Probably because they were interested and wanted to know?
  
  There is usually misunderstanding behind this type of questions. for example "why isn't ilike on macos where it is ~/.Trash" and then one has to explain what XDG_DATA_HOME is and why it makes sense for trash to be there (And that it doesn't have to do with the desktop environment as well).
  
  Or op just lost something important thinking that the trash was somewhere else.
- I also don’t understand. Sometimes the answer to a question is equally or more interesting than the reason a question is asked
- I need the exact location of the trash so I can specify it in the excludes for my backup tool. If it changes with the DE, then I have to change the excludes. But it doesn't.
  
  What can change is the location of XDG_DATA_HOME, (highly unlikely but it is possible, usually it is the user that changes that and not the distro).
  
  This trick fixes that highly unlikely posibility of the Trash dir being moved, add this to the exclude dirs:
  
  ${XDG_DATA_HOME:-$HOME/.local/share}/Trash
KDE Plasma does.
If they follow somewhat the XDG specs, then yes.

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