Move files and folders to the trash

Works on macOS (10.12+), Linux, and Windows (8+).

Note: The Linux implementation is not very good and not maintained. Help welcome. If no one steps up to help maintain it, I will eventually remove Linux support.

In contrast to fs.unlink, del, and rimraf which permanently delete files, this only moves them to the trash, which is much safer and reversible.

Install

npm install trash

Usage

import trash from 'trash';

await trash(['*.png', '!rainbow.png']);

API

trash(input, options?)

Returns a Promise.

input

Type: string | string[]

Accepts paths and glob patterns.

Non-existent files and glob patterns that match nothing are silently ignored. If you need to know whether files were actually trashed, check for their existence beforehand.

options

Type: object

glob

Type: boolean
Default: true

Enable globbing when matching file paths.

CLI

To install the trash command, run:

npm install --global trash-cli

Info

On macOS, macos-trash is used.
On Linux, the XDG spec is followed.
On Windows, recycle-bin is used. On WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux), files are moved to the Windows Recycle Bin.

FAQ

But I can do the same thing with mv

Not really. The mv command isn't cross-platform and moving to trash is not just about moving the file to a "trash" directory. On all OSes you'll run into file conflicts. The user won't easily be able to restore the file. It won't work on an external drive. The trash directory location varies between Windows versions. For Linux, there's a whole spec you need to follow. On macOS, you'll lose the Put back feature.

Windows service account behavior

When running as the Windows SYSTEM account or other service accounts, files are moved to that account's recycle bin (e.g., C:\$Recycle.Bin\S-1-5-18\ for SYSTEM). These files won't be visible in the normal user's recycle bin and may accumulate over time. For service contexts, consider using direct file deletion instead.

Related

• trash-cli - CLI for this module
• empty-trash - Empty the trash
• del - Delete files and folders