GNOME needs a "Trash Autopurge" functionality

[antistress]

Trash purge is typically a function that could be automated.

Most applications propose such a functionnality (i.e. my webmail let me configure it to automatically delete messages in the trash after 7 days)

At present time lots of people get bored with emptying the trash so they prefer definitely delete files (shift+suppress)
But sometimes they make a mistake and regret it : they've lost the way to restore the file by refusing using the trash
See the paradox : the trash is a funtionnality that people want but refuse to use. It could be the sign that the fuctionnality has usability drawbacks and that it should be improve...

Moreover people doesn't want to empty the trash in real life : why would they enjoy doing it on their computer ?!

The improvement could consist in automatically suppressing the files in the trash can after a couple of days. It means that the system must know when each file has been moved to the trash can to be able to supress them selectively. Of course it should be optionnal

[antistress (antistress)]

see also http://en.opensuse.org/OpenSUSE_GNOME_post-10.3_ideas

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

That's similar to http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=408997

[antistress (antistress)]

yes, thanks

[Inkwina (phsi)]

tmpreaper offers some of the functionality sought here. Having the trash applet offer a gui interface for adding a cron entry for tmpreaper on .Trash could be part of the solution. But this would be based on access time not date when moved to trash.

Ideally an option to auto purge the trash based on the amount of disk space used should also be available.

[antistress (antistress)]

Could GVFS help to get Trash Autopurge based on date deletion ?

[antistress (antistress)]

here is a great mockup of what could be done http://jeff.ecchi.ca/blog/images/trash-individual-files-expiry.png

[antistress (antistress)]

(the above mockup is from that article : I Don’t Want to Care About Trash http://jeff.ecchi.ca/blog/?p=335 )

[kikl (kilian-klaiber)]

I support the idea. If the file is older than a month, you probably have forgotten all about it. So deleting it automatically would probably be uncritical. It would be a great option for automatically managing the trash. In case you do need to untrash a file, it is more easily found. A true usability improvement in my mind.

[antistress (antistress)]

Now that gnome-bugs #89706 (which adds 'arrange by trash time' options in nautilus list and icon view) is fixed, shall i fill another bug specifically for the Trash Autopurge functionality ?

[antistress (antistress)]

(i mean : on bugzilla)

[Vish (vish)]

This bug is an upstream one and it would be quite helpful if somebody experiencing it could send the bug the to the people writing the software. You can learn more about how to do this for various upstreams at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bugs/Upstream.
Once submitted upstream , do report back here with the upstream bug number.
Thanks in advance!

@antistress: Yes , a new upstream bug would be better , else this bug would be a dup of lp Bug #301552 ;-)

[Vish (vish)]

Both the upstream bugs were for a column in the trash folder , but not a auto-purge function , hence removing upstream bug

[Vish (vish)]

Thanks for finding the relevant upstream bug.

[antistress (antistress)]

see https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=619408

[Sancho Panza (prashanthr-deactivatedaccount-deactivatedaccount)]

@antistress: Please check if your new bug report is a dupe of the ones already in remote bug watch above.

[antistress (antistress)]

indeed

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

The feature is being added upstream for GNOME 3.8