Disable trash for all external/removable drives? (e.g. SD cards, USB flash drives, etc; basically how Windows behaves)

[NM64]

I just want to know if there's a way to universally disable the trash for external/removable drives such as USB flash drives, SD cards, etc. The tl;dr is that I just want to be able to replicate how Windows handles its recycle bin where it's only used for fixed disks, not external/removable drives.

I know you can manually create a .Trash-1000 file and .Trash-999 file (the latter only useful on live ISOs) on the root of a given partition but this needs to be done on every single drive/partition where you want to disable trash which is very sub-optimal for the eldery non-tech-savvy family relatives that I have running Mint (especially if they buy a new USB drive or the like). I do have one uncle that has trash disabled universally for the entire PC but, in general, we want to keep the trash enabled on the local hard drive.

This would ideally be on Cinnamon but knowing if it's possible on XFCE would be nice too (but not as important).

EDIT:

Oh uh, I forgot to say that normally the config we use also replicates Windows in that we have the "delete" context menu hidden (except for that one uncle).

Basically we rely heavily on the way trash works in that files can still be easily restored but, on removable drives, it's a problem as the trash never gets emptied before the drives get removed and therefore the disk space never gets recovered.

[djph]

If you use "Delete" it should, well, delete things as opposed to moving them to trash.

[NM64]

If you use "Delete" it should, well, delete things as opposed to moving them to trash.

Oh uh, I forgot to say that normally the config we use also replicates Windows in that we have the "delete" context menu hidden (except for that one uncle).

Basically we rely heavily on the way trash works in that files can still be easily restored but, on removable drives, it's a problem as the trash never gets emptied before the drives get removed and therefore the disk space never gets recovered.

[djph]

Can't have your cake and eat it too.

[NM64]

Can't have your cake and eat it too.

I didn't think this was possible but I wanted to at least make sure.

[djph]

Can't have your cake and eat it too.

I didn't think this was possible but I wanted to at least make sure.

Yup, never hurts to ask - maybe someone else will come by and point out an easier way about it; even if it means scripting the keys / having to make them for family

[pbear]

... the disk space never gets recovered.

That's not quite true. If someone runs out of space, you can always suggest they empty the trash.

By the way, how does one disable Trash universally? Don't think I know that one.

[NM64]

By the way, how does one disable Trash universally? Don't think I know that one.

I should have clarified that I meant disabling the trash command universally, not disabling the actual trash (and even then I only mean the GUI command; if there's a terminal command then it's certainly not going to be disabled).

From what I can recall on Cinnamon (I personally use XFCE), there's an option in Nemo for something like "always delete immediately and skip the trash"

But because it's a Nemo setting, this does technically mean that the trash would still exist if you were to navigate to its location and/or you used some method outside of Nemo to delete files (e.g. manually installing Caja or Thunar on Cinnamon and then deleting files through them rather than Nemo).

[pbear]

Thanks. If anyone is interested, it's Edit > Preferences > Behavior > Bypass the Trash when the Delete key is pressed.

One is then required to confirm the Delete (AFAIK, there's no way to bypass Trash in any of the desktops with confirming), but can't accidentally send something to Trash and avoids having to right-click to Delete without sending to Trash. But, if wish to send a particular file to Trash, that option remains on the right-click menu.

[NM64]

Thanks. If anyone is interested, it's Edit > Preferences > Behavior > Bypass the Trash when the Delete key is pressed.

One is then required to confirm the Delete (AFAIK, there's no way to bypass Trash in any of the desktops with confirming), but can't accidentally send something to Trash and avoids having to right-click to Delete without sending to Trash. But, if wish to send a particular file to Trash, that option remains on the right-click menu.

Hmm, I could have sworn there was a way to straight-up remove the Trash option from even the right-click menu... Maybe that required lower-level editing, or maybe I'm just straight-up not remembering (this was either late 2016 or early 2017 with Mint 18.1) and perhaps we did in fact also do the manually-created .Trash-1000 file method on the internal hard drive's partition? (which would then obviously result in Mint saying it can't be moved to the trash and asks if you want to immediately delete the file)