Apparently, Prism Launcher chose to adhere to the idiotic principle of the hidden “trashbin”, .Trash-$(uid), invented by Ubuntu. Even though it’s based on QT. This can’t be disabled. It accumulated 139 GB of literal Trash, fully replaceable, over time. Just … why? There’s even an open issue about this, for over a year, referenced multiple times. I guess I have another point on my agenda.
I’m more of a dust man, myself. It runs recursively so it’s easy to pinpoint the culprit.
[Image source: the project’s README]
Doesn’t people use a disk usage scanner every once in a while to find out if there’s something hogging space?
If you have 4 TB disk, you don’t care until it is getting full.
the hidden “trashbin”, .Trash-$(uid), invented by Ubuntu
This isn’t some “idiotic principle invented by Ubuntu”, it just follows the freedesktop.org Trash specification. For many users, it can be really beneficial, see also the spec’s introduction:
An ability to recover accidentally deleted files has become the de facto standard for today’s desktop user experience.
Users do not expect that anything they delete is permanently gone. Instead, they are used to a “Trash can” metaphor. A deleted document ends up in a “Trash can”, and stays there at least for some time — until the can is manually or automatically cleaned.
Whether an application like Prism Launcher should use the trash can or delete the files directly is an entirely different question.
and proper trashing is actually really helpful, so you can trash files on encrypted volumes without leaking them to a unencrypted trash dir.
trashing saves time and has a more continous workflow, as you don’t have to confirm each file to prevent accidents, because you can restore if you deleted too much
