gvfs-trash

Move a file to the trash

$ gvfs-trash [path/to/file]

$ gvfs-trash [file1] [file2] [file3]

$ gvfs-trash --empty

$ gvfs-trash -f [path/to/file]

$ echo "[path/to/file]" | gvfs-trash

gvfs-trash [options] [file...]
gvfs-trash --empty

gvfs-trash is a GNOME Virtual File System command that moves files and directories to the user's trash bin instead of permanently deleting them. This provides a safer alternative to rm by allowing recovery of accidentally deleted files.
The trash location depends on the file's filesystem. For files in the user's home directory, trash is stored in $XDG_DATA_HOME/Trash (typically ~/.local/share/Trash). Files on removable drives may have their own trash folders.
When called without the --empty option, gvfs-trash expects file paths as arguments. If no files are specified, it reads paths from standard input, one per line. Moving files to trash does not free disk space until the trash is emptied.

-f, --force

Ignore nonexistent and non-deletable files

Empty the trash

Print help text and exit

Show version information and exit

Not all filesystems support the trash concept; files on such systems may be deleted immediately. The command has been deprecated in favor of gio trash, which provides the same functionality. Use gvfs-rm for permanent deletion or gvfs-ls trash:// to view trash contents.

gvfs-trash is part of GVFS (GNOME Virtual File System), introduced with GNOME 2.22 in 2008 as a replacement for the older gnome-vfs library. GVFS provides a unified interface for various filesystems and storage backends in GNOME. The gvfs command-line tools were later deprecated in favor of the gio command, which consolidates all GVFS operations under a single tool.

gio(1), trash-cli(1), rm(1), gvfs-rm(1)