KDE dolphin - The trash is not available for this item’s location.

F6F · 2026-01-06 06:16:28

Hi,

i need some help as something is broken in my KDE trash.
Whenever I try to delete some files in dophin
or Gwenview i get a dialog box telling me that:
access to the trash:// is denied (gwenview)
"The trash is not available for this item’s location. Permanently delete it instead? ‘/home/tobias/Downloads/SomeFile.tgz’ This action cannot be undone.." (dolphin)

As far a got to know from my research trash folder is located in /home/tobias/.local/share/Trash .

To debug the issue i checked the folder permissions.
looking fine from my point of view:
[tobias@lappy Trash]$ ls -la
total 8
drwxr-xr-x 1 tobias tobias 18 Jan 6 07:03 .
drwxr-xr-x 1 tobias tobias 2200 Jan 6 07:07 ..
drwxr-xr-x 1 tobias tobias 0 Jan 6 07:03 files
drwxr-xr-x 1 tobias tobias 0 Jan 6 07:03 info
also user is allowed to access the directory.

Also the Trash folder in dophin can be opened.
I deleted the trash once from bash - and it was recreated nicely with files and info subfolder.
I guess something is missconfigured like trash location for KDE?
Can you please guide me a bit how to find the issue?

Last edited by F6F (2026-01-07 08:09:43)

Arthurmeade12 · 2026-01-07 05:02:50

I think you might be overthinking this - what it sounds to me like you're trying to delete files (send them to the trash) ... that are already in the trash. Maybe try the "empty trash" button in your file manager or whatever trash program you use. Bash treats ~/.local/share/Trash as just another folder so that makes sense why `rm` would work there.

mpan · 2026-01-07 06:55:15

F6F:
Where is located the file, that you’re trying to delete? The message you mentioned looks as if the file path was edited and doesn’t name the actual file, hence the question.

It sounds like you’re trying to delete a file from a different filesystem, but that other filesystem has no trash and the file manager also has no rights to create the trash directory (“.Trash” or “.Trash-$uid” in the top level of the given file system).

What is the value of environment variable `XDG_DATA_HOME`?

Also, please use meaningful titles for threads. You may start with changing this one.

Last edited by mpan (2026-01-07 07:00:31)

F6F · 2026-01-07 08:13:53

i noticed trash is working fine for files located in ~
but not for files located in ~/Downloads
While Downloads folder lives in an dedicated BTRFS subvolume - so it looks like dolphin resists moving files across the subvolume boundaries.
Im sure that worked in the past.
Same issue occurs when files should be moved from vfat sd cards to the trash

seth · 2026-01-07 08:24:05

Edit: F5ck

Files are not moved across filesystems for the trash, that's be terrible practice.
They use a special directory inside the remote filesystem (.Trash/$UID) [edit, inb4, .Trash-$UID serves as fallback to that]

The output of

mount

is still gonna be relevant.
Also

ls -la ~/Downloads

Last edited by seth (2026-01-07 08:29:29)

mpan · 2026-01-07 09:21:49

F6F: thanks for correcting the title.

In the top level of that subvolme, create directory “.Trash-$UID”, where `$UID` stands for your UID (likely 1000), with subdirectories “expunged”, “files”, and “info” inside. Make sure your user has full permissions to this directory and subdirectories.

The details of how trashes work are in Freedesktop’s trash specs.

tl;dr: while files may be moved across filesystems to be put into the trash bin, file managers may choose not to do so for performance and data integrity reasons. Moving a file within a single filesystem is nothing more than changing metadata indicating where it’s located. Moving a file across filesystems involves literal copying of all data around. Some file managers attempt to create the relevant trash directory, but various factors — for example insufficient permissions — may prevent that from happening.

Last edited by mpan (2026-01-07 09:23:12)

F6F · 2026-01-07 09:43:14

Hi,

thanks for the great support and for explaining the background.
I created the trash this way.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[tobias@lappy ~]$ ls -la Downloads/ | grep -i Trash
drwxr-xr-x 1 tobias tobias 0 Jan 7 10:29 .Trash-1000
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[tobias@lappy ~]$ ls -la Downloads/.Trash-1000/
total 0
drwxr-xr-x 1 tobias tobias 0 Jan 7 10:29 .
drwxr-xr-x 1 tobias tobias 4156 Jan 7 10:29 ..
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[tobias@lappy ~]$ ls -la Downloads/.Trash-1000/
total 0
drwxr-xr-x 1 tobias tobias 18 Jan 7 10:39 .
drwxr-xr-x 1 tobias tobias 4156 Jan 7 10:29 ..
drwxr-xr-x 1 tobias tobias 0 Jan 7 10:39 files
drwxr-xr-x 1 tobias tobias 0 Jan 7 10:39 info
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I rebooted once dolphin still showing same error when trying do delete from ~/Downloads
moving a file manually like this:
[tobias@lappy Downloads]$ mv EULA.txt .Trash-1000/files/
[tobias@lappy Downloads]$ mv .Trash-1000/files/EULA.txt .
worked

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
in my home there is also a .Trash-1000 folder
but also dolphin shows files in the Trash the .Trash-1000 is empty

[tobias@lappy ~]$ ls .Trash-1000/files/
[tobias@lappy ~]$ ls -la .Trash-1000/files/
total 0
drwxr-xr-x 1 tobias tobias 0 Jan 7 10:32 .
drwxr-xr-x 1 tobias tobias 18 Jan 7 10:32 ..
[tobias@lappy ~]$ ls -la .Trash-1000/info/
total 0
drwxr-xr-x 1 tobias tobias 0 Jan 7 10:32 .
drwxr-xr-x 1 tobias tobias 18 Jan 7 10:32 ..
[tobias@lappy ~]$

Dolphin shows a path for each of the files in trash giving the original
path before they got deleted .....

a search showed the trashed files are stored in:
[tobias@lappy ~]$ find . -iname tmp.txt
./.local/share/Trash/files/tmp.txt
./tmp.txt

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Last edited by F6F (2026-01-07 09:51:55)

mpan · 2026-01-07 11:37:27

Is “~/Downloads” the mount point for the subvolme, or is it a directory deeper in that subvolme? The trash should be at the top level of the given filesystem.

Having “.Trash-1000” directly in home is weird, unless home itself is also a mount point. That’s confusing me a bit.

What’s the output of:

mount

F6F · 2026-01-07 11:54:54

Hi,
yes home is a btrfs subvolume itself. Im creating incremental backups form - to exclude Downloads created it as a subvolume itself

[root@lappy tobias]# mount
proc on /proc type proc (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
sys on /sys type sysfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
dev on /dev type devtmpfs (rw,nosuid,relatime,size=32196872k,nr_inodes=8049218,mode=755,inode64)
run on /run type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,mode=755,inode64)
efivarfs on /sys/firmware/efi/efivars type efivarfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
/dev/nvme0n1p2 on / type btrfs (rw,noatime,compress=zstd:3,ssd,discard=async,space_cache=v2,subvolid=256,subvol=/@)
securityfs on /sys/kernel/security type securityfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
tmpfs on /dev/shm type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,inode64,usrquota)
devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,nosuid,noexec,relatime,gid=5,mode=600,ptmxmode=000)
cgroup2 on /sys/fs/cgroup type cgroup2 (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,nsdelegate,memory_recursiveprot,memory_hugetlb_accounting)
none on /sys/fs/pstore type pstore (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
bpf on /sys/fs/bpf type bpf (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,mode=700)
systemd-1 on /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc type autofs (rw,relatime,fd=42,pgrp=1,timeout=0,minproto=5,maxproto=5,direct,pipe_ino=3356)
configfs on /sys/kernel/config type configfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
debugfs on /sys/kernel/debug type debugfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
tracefs on /sys/kernel/tracing type tracefs (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
mqueue on /dev/mqueue type mqueue (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
fusectl on /sys/fs/fuse/connections type fusectl (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
hugetlbfs on /dev/hugepages type hugetlbfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,pagesize=2M)
tmpfs on /tmp type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,nr_inodes=1048576,inode64,usrquota)
none on /run/credentials/systemd-journald.service type tmpfs (ro,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,nosymfollow,size=1024k,nr_inodes=1024,mode=700,inode64,noswap)
/dev/nvme0n1p2 on /srv type btrfs (rw,noatime,compress=zstd:3,ssd,discard=async,space_cache=v2,subvolid=258,subvol=/@srv)
/dev/nvme0n1p2 on /home type btrfs (rw,noatime,compress=zstd:3,ssd,discard=async,space_cache=v2,subvolid=266,subvol=/@old-home)
/dev/nvme0n1p2 on /var/log type btrfs (rw,noatime,compress=zstd:3,ssd,discard=async,space_cache=v2,subvolid=259,subvol=/@var-log)
/dev/nvme0n1p1 on /boot type vfat (rw,relatime,fmask=0022,dmask=0022,codepage=437,iocharset=ascii,shortname=mixed,utf8,errors=remount-ro)
binfmt_misc on /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc type binfmt_misc (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
tmpfs on /run/user/1000 type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,size=6444148k,nr_inodes=1611037,mode=700,uid=1000,gid=1000,inode64)
portal on /run/user/1000/doc type fuse.portal (rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,user_id=1000,group_id=1000)
gvfsd-fuse on /run/user/1000/gvfs type fuse.gvfsd-fuse (rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,user_id=1000,group_id=1000)

as home was moved from my previous device its named as old-home.
Deleting files was fine till a week ago
then it broke. I guess files had been moved (copied over) to

 ./.local/share/Trash/files/

not sure why that behavior changed

mpan · 2026-01-07 12:37:26

Then it sounds weird. “~/.local/share/Trash” should already work — it’s on the same filesystem. Presence of “~/.Trash-1000” is also explained now, since ~ is simply the root of the filesystem.

Unless it’s a bug in KDE, I have no idea what might be wrong.

F6F · 2026-01-07 12:52:52

Ok - ill gonna wait a while and see if the issue gets fixed :-)
thanks a lot for the support

seth · 2026-01-07 15:23:53

killall dolphin
strace -f -o /tmp/dolphin.strace dolphin
# try to trash a file
cat /tmp/dolphin.strace | curl -F 'file=@-' 0x0.st

firewalker · 2026-01-09 16:37:02

I have the same issue. trashbin used to work across all my partitions that the user had rights. Now it only works for home.

strace -f -o /tmp/dolphin.strace dolphin

QGridLayout: Multi-cell fromRow greater than toRow
kf.baloo: Failed to add exclude folder config entry for "/koko/kicad/"
kf.coreaddons: "Could not load plugin from /usr/lib/qt6/plugins/kf6/thumbcreator/appimagethumbnail.so: Cannot load library /usr/lib/qt6/plugins/kf6/thumbcreator/appimagethumbnail.so: libappimage.so.1.0: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory"
kf.coreaddons: "Could not load plugin from /usr/lib/qt6/plugins/kf6/thumbcreator/appimagethumbnail.so: Cannot load library /usr/lib/qt6/plugins/kf6/thumbcreator/appimagethumbnail.so: libappimage.so.1.0: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory"
kf.coreaddons: "Could not load plugin from /usr/lib/qt6/plugins/kf6/thumbcreator/appimagethumbnail.so: Cannot load library /usr/lib/qt6/plugins/kf6/thumbcreator/appimagethumbnail.so: libappimage.so.1.0: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory"
kf.coreaddons: "Could not load plugin from /usr/lib/qt6/plugins/kf6/thumbcreator/appimagethumbnail.so: Cannot load library /usr/lib/qt6/plugins/kf6/thumbcreator/appimagethumbnail.so: libappimage.so.1.0: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory"
kf.coreaddons: "Could not load plugin from /usr/lib/qt6/plugins/kf6/thumbcreator/appimagethumbnail.so: Cannot load library /usr/lib/qt6/plugins/kf6/thumbcreator/appimagethumbnail.so: libappimage.so.1.0: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory"
kf.kio.filewidgets.kfilewidgets: Your 'templates' folder is set to your home folder. This is probably an error in your settings. Ignoring it. You can change the setting by running `systemsettings kcm_desktoppaths`. 
kf.coreaddons: "Could not load plugin from /usr/lib/qt6/plugins/kf6/thumbcreator/appimagethumbnail.so: Cannot load library /usr/lib/qt6/plugins/kf6/thumbcreator/appimagethumbnail.so: libappimage.so.1.0: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory"

kf.kio.workers.trash: No trash directory found for  "/" ! TrashImpl::findTrashDirectory returned -3

seth · 2026-01-09 20:44:29

The interesting bit is gonna be /tmp/dolphin.strace but

kf.kio.workers.trash: No trash directory found for  "/" ! TrashImpl::findTrashDirectory returned -3

is very interesting because it looks like (depending on which file/path you actually tried to delete) the partition dependent trash is thought to be on / (which you'll not be able to write)

https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=513350 looks related

Arch Linux

#1 2026-01-06 06:16:28

KDE dolphin - The trash is not available for this item’s location.

#2 2026-01-07 05:02:50

Re: KDE dolphin - The trash is not available for this item’s location.

#3 2026-01-07 06:55:15

Re: KDE dolphin - The trash is not available for this item’s location.

#4 2026-01-07 08:13:53

Re: KDE dolphin - The trash is not available for this item’s location.

#5 2026-01-07 08:24:05

Re: KDE dolphin - The trash is not available for this item’s location.

#6 2026-01-07 09:21:49

Re: KDE dolphin - The trash is not available for this item’s location.

#7 2026-01-07 09:43:14

Re: KDE dolphin - The trash is not available for this item’s location.

#8 2026-01-07 11:37:27

Re: KDE dolphin - The trash is not available for this item’s location.

#9 2026-01-07 11:54:54

Re: KDE dolphin - The trash is not available for this item’s location.

#10 2026-01-07 12:37:26

Re: KDE dolphin - The trash is not available for this item’s location.

#11 2026-01-07 12:52:52

Re: KDE dolphin - The trash is not available for this item’s location.

#12 2026-01-07 15:23:53

Re: KDE dolphin - The trash is not available for this item’s location.

#13 2026-01-09 16:37:02

Re: KDE dolphin - The trash is not available for this item’s location.

#14 2026-01-09 20:44:29

Re: KDE dolphin - The trash is not available for this item’s location.

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