sindresorhus / recycle-bin

Move files and folders to the Windows recycle bin

recycle-bin

Move files and folders to the Windows recycle bin

Install

Download the binary and put it somewhere in your %path%.

Usage

$ recycle-bin --help

Usage: recycle-bin <path> [...]

Build

Install MinGW-w64 and run:

$ build

Related

• empty-recycle-bin - Empty the Windows recycle bin
• trash - Move files and folders to the trash - cross-platform
• empty-trash - Empty the trash - cross-platform

recycle-bin's Issues

Fails silently when attempting to remove in-use directory

If I run recycle-bin on a directory that is open elsewhere e.g. in an IDE, it will fail to do so but without any error output.

Repro (PowerShell)

New-Item -ItemType Directory test
# Open in VSCode
code .\test\
# Attempt to remove
recycle-bin .\test\
Get-Item .\test\ # Untouched, no error message

By default, don't permanently delete when recycle bin doesn't exist

I think that's a better default. We can add a flag to get back the old behavior.

It seems like we can use the FOF_WANTNUKEWARNING flag for this:

Send a warning if a file or folder is being destroyed during a delete operation rather than recycled. This flag partially overrides FOF_NOCONFIRMATION. - https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/api/shobjidl_core/nf-shobjidl_core-ifileoperation-setoperationflags

It's not immediately clear what they mean by warning and how we could check for that though.

Use the newer IFileOperation interface

From the SHFileOperation docs:

This function has been replaced in Windows Vista by IFileOperation.

I wanted to use IFileOperation initially, but couldn't find any good examples of using it in C. Most used it in C++.

Should use the IFileOperation::DeleteItems and IFileOperation::SetOperationFlags(FOFX_ADDUNDORECORD | FOFX_RECYCLEONDELETE | FOF_NOERRORUI | FOF_SILENT | FOFX_EARLYFAILURE) methods.

Switching to then newer API might add support for long paths, not really sure.
See: sindresorhus/trash#16.

We can still keep the SHFileOperation around for support for Vista and older, as the FOFX_RECYCLEONDELETE flag requires Windows 8.

Help wanted - My C skills are very much at a noobish level, so any help would be much appriciated :)

Happy to use C++ if that's what it takes. I'm just trying to keep it simple with C.

IssueHunt Summary

medusalix has been rewarded.

Sponsors (Total: $100.00)

• issuehunt ($100.00)

Tips

• Checkout the Issuehunt explorer to discover more funded issues.
• Need some help from other developers? Add your repositories on IssueHunt to raise funds.