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Is it safe to use `trash-cli` on macOS?

1 vote
3 answers
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## Introduction The program [nnn](https://github.com/jarun/nnn) has a send-to-trash functionality, and it uses [trash-cli](https://github.com/andreafrancia/trash-cli) . I would like to use nnn and trash-cli on macOS. Reading trash-cli's homepage, I see it uses ~/.local/share/Trash/, while macOS' Trash is ~/.Trash. I was thinking, I could create a symlink pointing to macOS' Trash. To test this, here is what I ran:
% cd ~/.local/share
% ln -s ~/.Trash Trash
% ls ~/.Trash
% touch deleteme
% mv deleteme Trash
% ls ~/.Trash
deleteme
So, it seems like this method works. ## Testing trash-cli Indeed, when I installed trash-cli, the command works (with the slight drawback of using a different format):
[nix-shell:/tmp]$ touch deleteme2

[nix-shell:/tmp]$ trash deleteme2

[nix-shell:/tmp]$ tree ~/.Trash/
/Users/redacted/.Trash/
├── deleteme
├── files
│   └── deleteme2
└── info
    └── deleteme2.trashinfo

2 directories, 3 files

[nix-shell:/tmp]$ trash-list
2022-04-29 15:23:37 /private/tmp/deleteme2
However, when I tried running trash-empty, it showed that it would delete other directories:
[nix-shell:/tmp]$ trash-empty
Would empty the following trash directories:
    - /Users/redacted/.local/share/Trash
    - /.Trash-501
    - /System/Volumes/VM/.Trash-501
    - /System/Volumes/Preboot/.Trash-501
    - /System/Volumes/Update/.Trash-501
    - /System/Volumes/xarts/.Trash-501
    - /System/Volumes/iSCPreboot/.Trash-501
    - /System/Volumes/Hardware/.Trash-501
    - /System/Volumes/Data/.Trash-501
    - /nix/.Trash-501
    - /System/Volumes/Update/mnt1/.Trash-501
Proceed? (y/n) n
I believe these are all [user trashes](https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/252371) , as my user number is 501. However, it's still a bit worrying. ## My question Is it safe to symlink .Trash and use trash-cli as normal? ## Edit 2022-04-30 I have clarified the context (nnn) in my introduction.
Asked by seasonedfish (253 rep)
Apr 29, 2022, 08:43 PM
Last activity: Mar 19, 2025, 06:48 PM