homeclean

A utility to clean your GNU/Linux’s home by deleting the files that have not been accessed for a long time (by default, 365 days). Written in GNU Bash.

Alpha testers needed

homeclean is in alpha stage! Please help me by reporting any issue here. Thank you!

Table of content

1. Download
2. Use
   1. Getting started
   2. Clean behavior
   3. Configure
   4. .homecleaninclude
   5. Miscellaneous options
   6. Help information
3. To-do
4. License

Download

git clone https://github.com/cszach/homeclean
cd homeclean
./install

Use

Getting started

homeclean uses the find command to search for files that have not been accessed for, by default, 365 days. We will see how to change the number of days in a second. But first, try:

homeclean --dry

This will print the files that homeclean would remove, without actually removing them. If there is no file, the message “No files to clean.” will appear. You can change the number of days e.g. decrease it to expand the search, using the -a option:

homeclean --dry -a180 # Search for files that have not been accessed for 6 months

It is recommended that you carefully view the list of files before cleaning them using homeclean. The utility may pick up files that you do not wish to delete, such as your backups or program files. This is where the file .homecleanignore comes in.

.homecleanignore is where you can specify files and directories that you want homeclean to ignore (similar to .gitignore for Git). The file must be at the root of your $HOME directory (i.e. $HOME/.homecleanignore). Here is an example of a .homecleanignore file:

# Ignore dot files and folders

.*

# Ignore backups

/home/john/Backup

Note:

• Blank lines are ignored;
• Lines that start with the hash symbol (#) are considered comments and are ignored by homeclean. You cannot have a comment and a pattern on the same line;
• Each pattern appears on its own line;
• Shell patterns (wildcards) are allowed, such as .* (matches hidden files and folders);
• If a pattern does not match absolute paths, then it will be concatenated to HOMECLEAN_INCLUDE directories, which is $HOME by default. In the above example, .* is a pattern that does not match absolute paths, so it will be concatenated to $HOME, meaning the entry .* is the same as /home/john/.*. On the other hand, /home/john/Backup is a pattern that matches an absolute path, so it is not concatenated to anything.

Once you are happy with the list of files, clean them by removing the --dry option:

homeclean

The list of files will be displayed, and homeclean will ask for your confirmation. Again, be sure to review the list before cleaning. Enter y or yes to confirm.

Clean behavior

By default, homeclean does not actually delete the files. It will instead “trash” them, by moving them to a directory called .homecleantrash. The full path of this directory is $HOME/.homecleantrash. When trashing files, their parent directories are preserved in the trash folder. For example, if a file at /home/john/a/b/c/old_file.txt is trashed, it will be moved to /home/john/.homecleantrash/home/john/a/b/c/old_file.txt. This makes it possible to restore the trashed files back to their original positions later. If you do not want to preserve parent directories, use the -l option:

homeclean -l

old_file.txt would be moved to /home/john/.homecleantrash/old_file.txt in this case.

If you want to delete the files permanently instead of moving them to trash, use the -x or --delete option:

homeclean --delete

Configure

homeclean --show-config

…shows the current configuration of homeclean. The meaning of the variables are explained in the help information, which can be displayed using:

homeclean --help

To change the configuration, you can edit the ~/.homecleanrc file. If it does not already exist, export the current configuration using:

homeclean --export-config --dry

.homecleaninclude

homeclean searches in $HOME by default, but you can override this behavior. The .homecleaninclude file (which must be stored at $HOME/.homecleaninclude) can be used to specify the directories and files for homeclean to search. The syntax for the file is the same as for .homecleanignore (see above).

Miscellaneous options

Finally, some options that have not been mentioned:

• --ignore-hidden=TYPE allows you to ignore hidden files and directories. TYPE can be all (ignore both hidden files and directories), directories (only directories), or files (only files);
• -N or --non-recursive allows you to search for files non-recursively. R or --recursive overrides this behavior;
• --show-command prints the find command that homeclean uses to search for files to clean under the current configuration. You can save the output to a script:

homeclean --show-command > script.sh

or use it in your scripts, like this:

OLD_FILES=$( eval "$( homeclean --show-command )" )

• Using --cron means homeclean will not ask you for your confirmation. This is suitable for, say, using homeclean in a cronjob. Use this option with serious caution.

Help information

Whenever you get stuck, the help information is your friend. Print it with:

homeclean --help

To-do

• Restore trashed files
• --export-config only exports config

Contributions are very welcomed!

License

This software is released to the public domain. You may freely use, copy, modify, and redistribute it without asking for permissions or giving attribution (although that is much appreciated). See LICENSE for more details.