How can I make 'rm' move files to the trash can?

Bad Idea

Using rm to move files to the trash is a dopamine hit. It is common and pleasuring but can be bad for you taken out of context.

You really need control yourself when using rm. Especially if your backups are not current or you don’t have the time to do an erase / install / restore.

Don't use rm

Imagine, you get used to rm moving to trash and make a habit of it. Sure, your system is safe but when you log into a friend's (or your wife's or your boss') notebook and have to delete something? You'll be actually using the real rm - deleting those files forever. Without lots of prep and qualifiers, it's a bad habit, and you need to know that.

So instead, install rmtrash and make a habit of using it:

# install rmtrash, (either from the macports or by the brew.)
$ alias trash="rmtrash"
$ alias   del="rmtrash"       # del / trash are shorter than rmtrash

Correcting bad habits

Here’s where the personal advice starts - changing one’s behavior is hard. Another thing you can do to force yourself to use rmtrash instead of rm is alias it to a custom message in your .profile.

alias rm="echo Use 'del', or the full path i.e. '/bin/rm'"

So, whenever you use rm, you'll be prompted to either use rmtrash or /bin/rm. Remember, this is only temporary, after a while you should remove the alias.

Never ever, do something like this:

$ pwd
/
$ cd /tnp; rm -rf *
sh: cd: /tnp: No such file or directory

Pop Quiz: In what directory will the rmcommand run? :)

I can think of a dozen ways to code this, but categorically refuse to type any of them up in an answer. I strongly recommend you curb your habit of getting a little crazy. You shouldn't be in the habit of using rm at all if you can't use it properly.

The fundamental problem here is that even if you install a safety net on your own system, that will only help you keep your bad habits and when you happen to be on another machine some day that doesn't have the same custom protections, you will do something epicly bad.

The proper solution is to use rm as it was meant to be used including manually adding the -i argument whenever you are in doubt about how a glob will expand, and have good system backups that you can restore in the event of serious user error. Trying to add "trash" to commands that in the rest of the universe don't use it is a half-way step that is the worst of both worlds.

Either use the trash or don't. Using rm doesn't go to trash, it removes.

If you want to use the trash, there is nothing wrong with that. Just get in the habit of using the rmtrash command instead of rm. This will help your brain understand what's happening and not get you into a bad habit that will cause grief later.

Use a command line tool like rmtrash (which usually just moves the file(s) to ~/.Trash making sure that the file has a unique name) or a script that uses appscript to call the Finder to do the delete. The latter is slower but adds the ability to use the Put Back option fromn Finder to restore the file easily.

I used trash as it is in in MacPorts and Homebrew and rmtrash is now very old and unmaintained. However on reading the code changes when editing this note I noticed that it changed in 2017 from using the Finder by default to move by default (which is not what I wanted and is a major change). So I will look for another tool.

As noted in the comments it is not a good idea to make rm an alias best to remember to use the trash program you installed directly

But if you wanted to you could do

After installing rmtrash to say /usr/local/bin/rmtrash then you can create an alias for bash

alias rm='rmtrash'

You can use \rm to call rm directly and ignore the alias

Just want to add a helpful habit to get into for those that don't do this already. Before using rm for anything, do 'ls' on it first. That way you can see all the files that you intend to delete. Then instead of retyping, just pull previous 'ls' command up and swap out ls for rm. This habit has reduced a lot of anxiety when invoking rm.