Warning, it is not possible to recover files after they have been removed! Not even the systems administrators can do this.
The most direct way to remove files and folder permanently is to use
the rm command. This removes the files immediately, which can be a
rather slow process if you remove a large number of files. More
importantly, using rm is irreversible – there is no way to recover
files deleted by mistake.
Warning, it is not possible to recover files after they have been automatically wiped from global scratch! Not even the systems administrators can do this.
An alternative to removing files, is to move them to global scratch. Contrary to removing files, moving files is very fast.
Create your personal global scratch directory, if it doesn’t exist:
mkdir -p /wynton/scratch/$USER
Manually move files and folders to your global scratch directory for temporary staging, where they will be automatically deleted after two weeks.
This approach gives you some leeway to undo deletions done by mistake.
These instructions show how to delete files by moving them to your personal Trash folder, without deleting them permanently. This gives you a second chance if you happen to delete files by mistake. There are tool for recovering files from the Trash folder. Your Trash folder will only be wiped when you explicitly say so. A good strategy is to empty the trash folder later - days or weeks - that will give you a chance to see what files are missing.
Key to working with with the Trash folder, is the trash-cli toolbox
available via:
[alice@dev2 ~]$ module load CBI trash-cli
Analogously to using rm to manually remove files (danger; that’s
irreversible), you can use the trash tool to move files and folders
to your Trash folder. For example, say you want to clean out a
specific file and a specific folder, then you can use:
[alice@dev2 ~]$ trash ~/projects/some-file
[alice@dev2 ~]$ trash ~/projects/superduper/
[alice@dev2 ~]$
These have now been moved to your Trash folder, which you can see by
using trash-list, as in:
[alice@dev2 ~]$ trash-list
2025-12-23 11:07:29 /wynton/home/boblab/alice/projects/some-file
2025-12-23 11:07:33 /wynton/home/boblab/alice/projects/superduper
[alice@dev2 ~]$
If you have a lot of files and folders to delete, or you do not have a
good overview where they are and how big they are, you can use the
interactive text-based user interface (TUI) ncdu tool to quickly
navigate around and move files to the Trash folder. The ncdu tool is
available as:
[alice@dev2 ~]$ module load CBI trash-cli ncdu
With this, you can then go to the folder you wish to clean up and run ncdu from there, e.g.
[alice@dev2 ~]$ cd ~/projects/
[alice@dev2 projects]$ ncdu --one-file-system --enable-delete --delete-command "trash --"
This will launch the TUI, and then it starts to scan all the content, which can take several minutes to complete for large folders. When the scan is complete, you can use the TUI to interactive find files and folders to delete.
Now, because the scan takes a long time, we recommend a two step approach; (a) pre-scan files, then (b) navigate and delete files, which you can do as:
[alice@dev2 ~]$ cd ~/projects/
[alice@dev2 projects]$ ncdu --one-file-system -o ncdu.cache
When the scanning is done, there will be a file ncdu.cache in the
current directory, which is a database index of all your files and
their sizes. From now on, the ncdu TUI will be fast and
responsive. Launch it as:
[alice@dev2 projects]$ ncdu -f ncdu.cache --enable-delete --delete-command "trash --"
This will open up a text-based user interface (TUI) displaying the size of files and folders. This TUI makes it easy to navigate in and out of folders and delete files. Press ? to see available keyboard shortcuts. The most useful ones are:
When you delete, you will be asked to confirm with “yes”, “no”, or
“don’t ask me again”, after which the files are swiftly moved to
your personal Trash folder. Keep deleting files this way until you are
done. Press q to exit ncdu when you are ready.
When you’re done, remove the temporary ncdu.cache file;
[alice@dev2 ~]$ rm ncdu.cache
If you regret some of the deletions in your Trash folder;
[alice@dev2 ~]$ trash-list
2025-12-23 11:07:29 /wynton/home/boblab/alice/projects/some-file
2025-12-23 11:07:33 /wynton/home/boblab/alice/projects/superduper
2025-12-23 11:09:32 /wynton/home/boblab/alice/projects/another-file
[alice@dev2 ~]$
you can restore them using trash-restore;
[alice@dev2 ~]$ trash-restore ~/projects/some-file
0 2025-12-23 11:07:33 /wynton/home/boblab/alice/projects/some-file
What file to restore [0..0]: 0
[alice@dev2 ~]$
If there are older versions of the same file, then you will be asked to select which version you wish to restore.
Warning, it is not possible to recover files after they have been wiped from the Trash folder! Not even the systems administrators can do this.
Before wiping your Trash folder, think twice, because after this step it is impossible to recover the deleted files. A good strategy is to let files sit in your trash folder for some days or weeks and keep doing your regular work. That gives you a chance to detect if you deleted too many files by mistakes.
To permanently remove parts of your Trash folder;
[alice@dev2 ~]$ trash-list
2025-12-23 11:07:29 /wynton/home/boblab/alice/projects/some-file
2025-12-23 11:07:33 /wynton/home/boblab/alice/projects/superduper
2025-12-23 11:09:32 /wynton/home/boblab/alice/projects/another-file
[alice@dev2 ~]$
use the trash-rm command, e.g.
[alice@dev2 ~]$ trash-rm ~/projects/superduper/
[alice@dev2 ~]$
This results in:
[alice@dev2 ~]$ trash-list
2025-12-23 11:07:33 /wynton/home/boblab/alice/projects/superduper
2025-12-23 11:09:32 /wynton/home/boblab/alice/projects/another-file
[alice@dev2 ~]$
That file is now permanently gone. To permanently remove all
content of your Trash folder, use the trash-empty command, as in:
[alice@dev2 ~]$ trash-empty
Would empty the following trash directories:
- /wynton/home/boblab/alice/.local/share/Trash
Proceed? (y/N)
If you have a lot of files in your Trash folder, this may take several minutes to complete.
It is only when you empty your Trash folder that your disk quota decreases.
The default location of your personal Trash folder is
~/.local/share/Trash/. The above instructions move deleted files
to this Trash folder, because we used ncdu ... --delete-command
"trash --". Moving files and folders is very fast, regardless of file
system. The command trash-empty is slow, much like rm is slow,
because it removes the files.