Move file to Trash on Snow Leopard from Terminal

Question

Snow Leopard allows users to "Put Back" files that were moved to the Trash from Finder. However, when I do mv <file> ~/.Trash from the command line I don't get the "Put Back" option.

Is there a native command in Snow Leopard that moves a file to the trash while letting me still be able to us "Put Back"?

Answer 1

When you move a file to the trash OS X updates the .DS_Store file inside ~/.Trash with the "Put back" information. (See this question for more details)

In order to update this you would have to also update the .DS_Store file when you move a file to the Trash in Terminal.

Answer 2

I recommend installing the Ruby gem osx-trash.

How?

sudo gem install osx-trash

Usage?

Usage: trash [OPTIONS] <file> [<file> ...]
       trash [-e | --empty]
       trash [-l | --list]
Specific options:
    -e, --empty                      Empty the trash
    -l, --list                       List items in the trash
    -h, --help                       Show this message
    -v, --version                    Show version

Manipulate to the Finder's trash.

Answer 3

In the MacOSX SDK, there are the functions FSPathMoveObjectToTrashSync and related. It should be easy to write a Python (or whatever) script around it.

Edit: Just coded it. Can be found here: rm-trash.py.

Answer 4

You want the rmtrash program.

You can use it to add items to the Trash as if it was done in the finder.

Edit: I just tried using rmtrash to delete and recover. It works exactly like deleting from finder. Files show up in the Trash, can be dragged out and emptied exactly the same. Been using it since '06 or so.

Answer 5

After looking at the alternatives I found out that:

• The rmtrash program moves files to the trash directory without using the system API, so the .DS_Store file won't be updated. Also, doesn't trigger the recycle sound.
• The python script invokes a deprecated method on mountain lion which also doesn't trigger the recycle sound.
• The ruby script works, but is sloooooow (like the python one).

So I wrote my own trash command implemented in the Nimrod programming language, so its fast and it triggers the trashcan sound in a background process. This means that typing the command and running it exits immediately as it doesn't need to wait for the sound to play. The con is you need to compile nimrod and then this program (no binary sorry!).

PS: To be honest the best implementation would be that of rmtrash using the official API I'm using from Nimrod, which is plain objective-c.