RMU

Recoverable Move Utility — rm you can undo.

rmu accepts GNU rm arguments but moves files into the FreeDesktop Trash by default. Files appear in the same Trash used by KDE Plasma, GNOME, Xfce, Cinnamon, and other conforming Linux desktops. rmuctl lists, restores, purges, empties, and diagnoses that Trash. Neither command is a daemon, and RMU does not maintain a private Trash database.

Warning

Three operations are permanent: rmu -d removes an empty directory, rmu --delegate hands the command to GNU rm, and confirmed rmuctl purge or rmuctl empty operations delete Trash contents.

Why RMU?

• Familiar GNU rm options, ordering, prompts, and exit decisions.
• Standard home and per-volume Trash locations.
• Explicit --delegate escape hatch for exact GNU deletion behavior.
• Optional item/byte progress, transfer rate, ETA, elapsed time, and summary.
• Index-free Trash management and diagnostics through rmuctl.
• Static x86-64 and AArch64 binaries, RPM/DEB packages, manual pages, and Bash, Zsh, and Fish completions.
• No third-party Rust crates.

Install

Release 0.7.2 provides RPM, DEB, and static musl archives for x86-64 and AArch64 Linux on GitHub Releases. Download the package and its checksum manifest, then verify it before install:

sha256sum -c --ignore-missing PACKAGE-SHA256SUMS

# Fedora/RHEL, x86-64
sudo dnf install ./rmu-0.7.2-1.x86_64.rpm

# Debian/Ubuntu, x86-64
sudo apt install ./rmu_0.7.2-1_amd64.deb

The AArch64 package names end in .aarch64.rpm and _arm64.deb. Packages install both commands, their manuals, and completions in the distribution's standard vendor directories.

The static archive works without a package manager:

sha256sum -c --ignore-missing RELEASE-SHA256SUMS
tar -xzf rmu-0.7.2-x86_64-linux-musl.tar.gz
sudo install -m 0755 \
  rmu-0.7.2-x86_64-linux-musl/bin/rmu \
  rmu-0.7.2-x86_64-linux-musl/bin/rmuctl \
  /usr/local/bin/

To build from source:

cargo build --release
cargo test --all-targets --locked

Source builds support Rust 1.85 and newer. The checked-in development and release toolchain is Rust 1.97.1. Containerized static and package builds are covered in the release engineering guide.

Try it safely

Start with a disposable file:

touch rmu-demo
rmu rmu-demo
rmuctl list
rmuctl restore ENTRY-ID

Confirm that the file appears in your desktop Trash and restores correctly. If you then want interactive rm commands to use Trash by default:

alias rm='rmu'

Aliases normally do not affect scripts that call /usr/bin/rm directly. Use type -a rm to see what your shell will execute.

Use rmu

rmu notes.txt                         # Trash a file
rmu -r old-project                    # Trash a directory as one item
rmu -i important.txt                  # Ask before moving
rmu --rmu-progress -r large-tree      # Show progress on a terminal
rmu --delegate -rf build              # Run verified GNU rm permanently

Trash mode is the default. Select a mode explicitly with --trash or --delegate, or set the default for an environment:

RMU_MODE=delegate rmu FILE

The command-line selector wins over RMU_MODE; when more than one selector is present, the last one wins. Delegate mode verifies GNU coreutils rm, removes only RMU's mode selector, and replaces the RMU process with that executable.

RMU accepts GNU's documented -f, -i, -I, --interactive, -d, --one-file-system, --preserve-root, --no-preserve-root, -r/-R, --recursive, and -v options. Grouped short options, --, permitted long option abbreviations, non-UTF-8 names, and POSIXLY_CORRECT ordering are tested against GNU coreutils rm.

Progress

Progress is off unless requested or configured:

export RMU_PROGRESS=auto       # never, auto, or always
rmu -r large-tree

--rmu-progress=never|auto|always overrides the environment. When enabled, recursive work reports item and allocated-byte rates, ETA when a complete total is available, elapsed time, failures, and skipped operands.

Empty directories

Like GNU rm -d, rmu -d permanently removes an empty directory with the kernel's atomic directory-removal operation. Use rmu -r if the empty directory and its metadata should remain recoverable. A Trash failure never falls back to permanent deletion.

Manage Trash with rmuctl

Command	Purpose
rmuctl list	List entries and stable IDs
rmuctl info ID	Inspect entries
rmuctl restore ID	Restore without overwriting an existing path
rmuctl purge ID	Permanently delete selected entries
rmuctl empty	Permanently delete matching Trash entries
rmuctl doctor	Diagnose Trash structure; read-only by default
rmuctl completions SHELL COMMAND	Print a completion definition

Preview permanent management work first:

rmuctl purge --dry-run ENTRY-ID
rmuctl empty --older-than=30d --dry-run

purge and empty require interactive confirmation or an explicit --yes. No environment variable can authorize deletion, repair, recovery, overwrite, or parent-directory creation. Trash quotas and automatic cleanup remain the desktop environment's responsibility.

For a custom completion location, print the selected definition to standard output:

rmuctl completions zsh rmu > /path/in/your/fpath/_rmu
rmuctl completions zsh rmuctl > /path/in/your/fpath/_rmuctl

The accepted shells are bash, zsh, and fish.

Environment

Variable	Values	Purpose
RMU_MODE	trash, delegate	Default rmu mode
RMU_PROGRESS	never, auto, always	Progress for rmu, purge, and empty
RMU_GNU_RM	executable path	GNU rm used for delegation and tests
XDG_DATA_HOME	directory	Home Trash base
HOME	directory	Fallback home Trash base

Limits

RMU uses atomic rename and therefore requires the selected Trash to be on the same mounted filesystem as the operand. It does not copy across filesystems, provide GIO/GVfs Trash for remote URIs, or follow symlinks while scanning. Recursive directory operands become one recoverable Trash item rather than a partially deleted tree. Linux with renameat2 support is required.

See the GNU compatibility contract for exact semantic differences and the architecture and safety model for filesystem invariants.

Documentation and support

• Architecture and safety model
• GNU rm compatibility contract
• Performance and memory benchmarks
• Release engineering
• Changelog
• Contributing
• Security policy

Bug reports and focused feature requests are welcome through the repository's issue forms. Use disposable reproduction data and remove sensitive paths. Potential vulnerabilities or data-loss paths belong in GitHub's private vulnerability-reporting channel described by the security policy.

License

RMU is available under the MIT License. Static distributions carry the required Rust 1.97.1 and musl 1.2.5 upstream notices.