Arch Linux

lio

Member

From: Montréal, Canada

Registered: 2009-09-13

Posts: 52

Smart trash can management ?

Hello there

I am wondering if there is a way to have my trash can in Xfce to manage itself in a smart way. For example, I use the trash can (probably like everyone else) as a safety in case I delete something that I needed.
However, there is a very very small chance that I realise I deleted something by mistake after more than a few days.
I would than like to have my trash can delete automatically anything that have been in it for more than a given period.
there is a another way of management that is also interesting: trash can delete the oldest object that it contains once it reach a certain size with a goal of keeping itself under that certain given size.

I have been looking for something like this in the linux world for a few years now. And it seems that the missing link to be able to do that is knowing when does a file/folder as been trashed. Thats pretty much my question. Once i know that, i could use a little croned script that would do what i want.

There is an equivalence in the apple world : http://www.fastforwardsw.com/compost/ that offer that exact behavior. I think they manage a database of what is in the trash and when it was trashed to be able to do this. this seems cumbersome to me.

Similarly, windows offer the max size trash can since as long as i can remember. no idea how they do it.

id like to see some suggestions on how the same thing can be achieved with arch.

lucke

Member

From: Poland

Registered: 2004-11-30

Posts: 4,018

Re: Smart trash can management ?

Dolphin does just that, FYI.

lio

Member

From: Montréal, Canada

Registered: 2009-09-13

Posts: 52

Re: Smart trash can management ?

well thats interesting, i tried reading more on trash related features of dolphin. could not find much info about it. What i understand is that it offers the max trash size feature. If anyone knows how it react once the max size is reached, please do share. How does it know which files to delete. will it keep on managing the trash can if i have it installed but i use another file manager to manage my files ? can it manage files that were deleted before the installation of dolphin ?

Harlequin

Member

Registered: 2009-07-28

Posts: 25

Re: Smart trash can management ?

dolphin just stops _moving_ files to the trash when limit is reached and giving out a notification saying that. And i am afraid it cant handle deleted files by other file manager, because it does not scan the trash, but it  creates a info file containing *surprise* information about the deleted files, sry.

lucke

Member

From: Poland

Registered: 2004-11-30

Posts: 4,018

Re: Smart trash can management ?