[muzKore]

Hey all
I was wondering if anyone knew of a feature or a means of having a recycle bin / trash where if something gets deleted, it can be recovered. The reason is for those times when a person accidentally deletes something and then it is gone. No option to go the trash and choose "put back" or "recover". Alternatively once in the trash, people could empty the trash to save space. An extra step (which could be optional) but a life saver for people who accidentally delete files.

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

Peace and props.
Murray

[Klojum]

The simple response from me personally would be: No.

I have encountered plenty of people in "normal" computer circumstances (=office PC's), where they just delete files into the (Windows) recycle bin, and never look back. Some of them then even complained they had run out of disk space, only to find their recycle bin to be the cause of that.

A trash can for your media source files should be handled by the device and its OS where these files are stored on. Kodi is only a simple application itself.
Besides that, normal computer usage applies: the user is responsible for his own data/files. That means: make proper backups if you want to keep important (add-on) data.
Kodi add-ons are easily re-installed, there is a backup tool for Kodi, and Kodi's default setting for deleting media/source files via its GUI is set to 'Off'.

Kodi will not be responsible for 'PEBKAC' situations.

[muzKore]

Thanks Klojum
You make some good points. At the same time, what you suggest is that Recycle bins are possibly useless. Personally, if a person does not know to check their recycle bin if they are running out of room then they pretty much don't know how to properly use a computer. You are right about Kodi being only an application running on an OS so I guess I will need to look deeper at the OS capabilities of the box I have. At the moment, I am using OSMC 4K+ which i pretty cool and hopefully they may have some ideas on the possibility of getting it up and going.

Cheers and thanks
Murray

[Klojum]

what you suggest is that Recycle bins are possibly useless

I don't think I suggested that. But users need to be more(?) aware when deleting files. A trash can shouldn't be an alternate storage location for files.
I admit there can be "oops" moments, but an "Are you sure" dialogue should prevent most of them. The bigger problem IMO is the user's automatic clicking/pressing of the "Okay" or "Next" buttons in dialogue popup windows.

[muzKore]

My apologies for misreading your response. I agree with you in regards to people that click before reading.
To add context. A friend was deleting a series inside my series folder and somehow the system went and deleted the parent series folder as well. No prompt. Gone. I have deleted folders before and what my friend did was not at the top series level. Something screwed up. As it is, I have now lost over 200GB of data. My request about the recycle bin was one of trying to gain insight. Linux distros usually have some sort of trash. The media box I have OSMC 4K+ runs on Linux and so naturally, I would have thought as universal as a recycled folder or trashcan would be a standard feature. Having said that, Android does not have it. I understand that Kodi is an App so my question should be directed at the OS level.

[Klojum]

A friend was deleting a series inside my series folder and somehow the system went and deleted the parent series folder as well.

That sounds like the deletion was done directly from the OS environment. I don't know how recycle bin on this particular system was set up, but you can set it into "Are you sure" mode when deleting files.

As far as deleting files inside Kodi goes, there are basically 3 options.
- First, the option for renaming/deleting files via Kodi must be enabled in Kodi's GUI. That option is some 3 levels deep before you find it.
- Deleting from the video library (movies or tv shows/episodes): After the first "Do you really want to..." question, the database entries are removed. Then a second question pops up to removed the actual video file(s) of that selected video(s).
- Deleting videos from the Videos/Files is basically done after a single "Do you really want to..." question.
- Deleting files via Kodi's File Manager directly will still get you the following prompt:

However... You can also delete the 'root' folders of movies or tv series if you want to.
As someone clever once said: The moment you make something idiot-proof, the universe will come up with a bigger idiot.

As it is, I have now lost over 200GB of data.

That is indeed an "oops" moment. Have you tried Undelete tools on the drive?

The media box I have OSMC 4K+ runs on Linux and so naturally, I would have thought as universal as a recycled folder or trashcan would be a standard feature

Linux does have a trash can / recycle bin. But it depends on how things are set up in terms of users and file rights and stuff. I can tell that things are different in Ubuntu Linux when it comes to local users and network connected users. Those defaults may not be ideal for newcomers to Linux. Common sense is still your best option. Or maybe you should just put your friend in a straitjacket next time he visits your home.

[BAJ1]

This may not be applicable to what you want, but my wife once got frustrated with slow response from Windows on our HTPC and pressed a few too many buttons on the remote and deleted our entire "Recordings" folder.  We lost a couple TB of TV recordings that day.  I recreated that folder with read-only permissions for the client user.  Individual files and sub-folders can still be deleted, but it can't wipe out all the recordings with one wrong click again.  Linux has similar folder/user permissions.  Might be something that can help you out if you have certain content you know you don't ever want deleted from Kodi/other client.