Feature Request: Integrated automatic cleanup for Trash and Temporary files

[goulartluizeduardo808-hub]

Hello Linux Mint Team,

I am writing to suggest a feature that would greatly improve the user experience for beginners and non-technical users.

Currently, Linux Mint lacks a native, automated way to handle system clutter. I suggest adding a "Maintenance" or "Privacy" toggle in System Settings that allows:

1. Automatic Trash emptying: Option to delete files older than X days (e.g., 30 days).
2. Temporary Files cleanup: Automatically clearing system cache and old logs.

In Ubuntu, this feature helps keep the OS clean without the need for third-party tools or manual intervention. Since Mint is known for being "user-friendly," having this automated would prevent disk space issues for less experienced users.

Thank you for your incredible work on the best Linux distribution available!

Best regards.

[mtwebster]

fwiw, the cinnamon desktop (via cinnamon-settings-daemon's csd-housekeeping plugin) already does monitor and cleanup thumbnails (`~/.cache/thumbnails) as needed.

It's configurable, though this is not exposed in the UI:

I don't personally agree with automatic emptying of trash - to me that's about as good as not having a 'trash' capability at all.

I've never looked specifically at how system-level logs are managed, but I'm fairly sure they're also 'maintained' by whatever systems/packages generate them (if you look in /var/log, you'll see old backup files compressed (.2.gz, etc...) and they'll only go back so far.

The primary danger in logging is probably ~/.xsession-errors. If you never reboot, this will continue to grow (ordinarily only the most recent session is saved with a .old extension).

There's also a warning mechanism when you have low disk space (also managed by that csd-housekeeping process) - it can be configured also, though, at this time that's not exposed in any UI, and is set to 5% for its first warning:

We can consider exposing some of this to users

[ghost]

That would be a good idea.

And if automaticly emptying the trash only happened to files in the trash for 30 days by default then it should be fine because if the wrong file was trashed, then why would it be thier for 30 days?

[Lurux]

As far as system logs are concerned, logrotate is already installed by default, however it doesn't seem to be configured to handle Journald logs, which currently can grow indefinitely as far as I can tell. Limiting their size in the default configuration would be a welcome addition.

I don't know how user logs and temp cache/files are handled, however.

As far as trashed files, I disagree with you: in my opinion, not having an auto-delete files older than x days makes the trash useless, because either people directly delete the files (or empty their trash every time they do), or, more commonly, never empty their trash and let it grow indefinitely.

Having an option to automatically remove files older than x days, even if disabled by default, would allow one to recover files they'd recently removed by error, while saving space in the long run and ensuring users don't face the dreaded "do I empty my trash or keep everything" once said trash is full of random files, as they might be scared of loosing important files if emptied.

Using a default period of eg. a 1-3 months would give users a lot of legroom to go back and recover deleted files if they realize they trashed something by error, without letting it grow indefinitely either. Just my two cents 😄

[ghost]

I have actually had one of my systems almost destroyed by 120+GB of logs that used up all the free diskspace, so that is 100% a problem that should be fixed, I had to free up disk space from the terminal, and after getting enough space freed up so i could use the gui file manager, I then had to use bleachbit to delete the logs.

Then I had to fix and reinstall stuff to fix corrupted configs, and 1 package was so messed up I had to remove, purge, and reconfigure it so I could get it back to doing it's main reason to exist... being a media server the process had me pulling my hair out, and gave me nightmares for a week.

[goulartluizeduardo808-hub]

ok I wasn't aware of those functions. Em dom., 25 de jan. de 2026 às 10:51, Michael Webster < ***@***.***> escreveu:

…

fwiw, the cinnamon desktop (via cinnamon-settings-daemon's csd-housekeeping plugin) already does monitor and cleanup thumbnails (`~/.cache/thumbnails) as needed. It's configurable, though this is not exposed in the UI: image.png (view on web) <https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/7a86a6db-44ff-4464-8579-cd2b579ad095> I don't personally agree with automatic emptying of trash - to me that's about as good as not having a 'trash' capability at all. I've never looked specifically at how system-level logs are managed, but I'm fairly sure they're also 'maintained' by whatever systems/packages generate them (if you look in /var/log, you'll see old backup files compressed (.2.gz, etc...) and they'll only go back so far. The primary danger in logging is probably ~/.xsession-errors. If you never reboot, this will continue to grow (ordinarily only the most recent session is saved with a .old extension). There's also a warning mechanism when you have low disk space (also managed by that csd-housekeeping process) - it can be configured also, though, at this time that's not exposed in any UI, and is set to 5% for its first warning: image.png (view on web) <https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/7928e17a-54cb-4d6e-92ca-d3447777abf4> We can consider exposing some of this to users — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#1347 (comment)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/B5HQGX6KGIJ5LX2KMLGG4ED4ITC5HAVCNFSM6AAAAACSWG42OCVHI2DSMVQWIX3LMV43URDJONRXK43TNFXW4Q3PNVWWK3TUHMYTKNJZG44DCNI> . You are receiving this because you authored the thread.Message ID: ***@***.***>

[Lurux]

See also linuxmint/cinnamon#9715