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I just found out on Fedora 20, that neither with Thunar nor Nautilus (I'm using Xfce4 here), I can't move file from /var/tmp to Trash. More precisely, in Nautilus the menu option is not available, while in Thunar it behaves as "Permanently delete". In either case, this is special-cased.

Why is that? Is Trash supposed to work only from home folder?

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2 Answers 2

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No Trash can typically handle anything. The problem is likely more that your userid does not have permissions to move these particular files and/or directories from /var/tmp.

To confirm drop to a shell and cd /var/tmp and check who the owner is of these files as well as the permissions on these files.

$ ls -la /var/tmp

Example

$ ls -la 
total 216
drwxrwxrwt.  8 root root  4096 Feb  6 09:38 .
drwxr-xr-x. 24 root root  4096 Jan  7 02:20 ..
drwxr-xr-x.  2 abrt abrt  4096 Feb  5 12:27 abrt
-rw-r--r--.  1 root root     0 Jan 13 13:49 ipp_class.log
-rw-r--r--.  1 root root     0 Jan 13 13:49 ipp_driver.log
-rw-r--r--.  1 root root     0 Jan 13 13:49 ipp_job.log
-rw-r--r--.  1 root root     0 Jan 13 13:49 ipp_printer.log
-rw-r--r--.  1 root root    53 Jan 13 13:49 ipp_request.log
drwx------.  2 saml saml  4096 Dec 31  1969 orbit-saml
-rw-------.  1 saml saml 20480 Jan 30 00:47 .swo
-rw-------.  1 saml saml 20480 Jan 30 00:46 .swp
drwx------.  3 root root  4096 Feb  5 12:09 systemd-private-dxtLOx
drwx------.  3 root root  4096 Feb  5 12:09 systemd-private-HGWviW
drwx------.  3 root root  4096 Feb  5 12:09 systemd-private-Sga875
-rw-------.  1 root root 65816 Jan 15 17:49 wireshark_pcapng_wlp3s0_20140115174932_AX9520
-rw-------.  1 root root  4056 Jan 15 17:49 wireshark_pcapng_wlp3s0_20140115174942_BrNwdN
-rw-------.  1 root root 30732 Jan 15 17:50 wireshark_pcapng_wlp3s0_20140115174958_Un8VJu
-rw-------.  1 root root 13392 Jan 15 17:56 wireshark_pcapng_wlp3s0_20140115175604_Oyz8JT

So if I were user saml when I ran Thunar or Nautilus and attempted touch any of the files owned by root I wouldn't be allowed to do so, in the above example.

But what user am I?

If you're in a shell and don't know what username you are (don't laugh, it happens) you can use the command:

$ who am i
saml     pts/11       2014-02-06 09:04 (:0)
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  • This can't be the problem since the OP can actually delete (see the comment about thunar), it's just the trash that they can't use. I would guess it is because trash is implemented at the partition level and this is a tmpfs filesystem.
    – terdon ♦
    Feb 6, 2014 at 15:39
  • @terdon - thanks, you should be able to move files in/out of tmpfs. I'm pretty sure that I've done that with shmfs shares before. I would suspect then that it's an option in Thunar/Nautilus that's disallowing the movement of files "across" what they're perceiving as "non-local" disks. Analogous to local vs. network share. This is just a guess though.
    – slm ♦
    Feb 6, 2014 at 15:48
  • No, I meant that the way that nautilus/thunar implement trash (as opposed to delete) is by having a partition- or filesystem-wide .Trash folder and this might not work on tmpfs. I just found out that Trash is in ~/.local/share/Trash though so I'm probably wrong. Still think it has something to do with the different filesystem though :)
    – terdon ♦
    Feb 6, 2014 at 15:54
  • I can create, move them out or delete files at that location so that's not the problem. It's probably partitions: /var/tmp is not on tmpfs but on a regular ext4 (/tmp is on tmpfs).
    – Alois Mahdal
    Feb 6, 2014 at 21:15
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this is caused by sticky bit set on the directory:

drwxrwxrwt. 8 root root 4096 Feb 6 09:38 .

sticky bit basically stops non-owners of file to rename or delete the file. It is usually set on /tmp and similar directories where multiple users have write permissions and/or save temporary files in, in order to prevent accidental deletion.

For more info, see: https://www.thegeekstuff.com/2013/02/sticky-bit/

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