rmx

Multiplatform drop in replacement for GNU rm with extra features

About

This project is a close port of GNU rm. The idea is extending the functionality around rm API and bring some niceties with improved performance, specially for large files and deeply nested directories.

Features

• [x] :penguin: Original GNU rm api
• [x] :paperclip: System trash bin integration (-t)
• [x] :zap: Blazingly fast
• [x] :skull: Unrecoverable removal (--shred)
• [ ] :mag_right: More filtering options
• [ ] :smile: You tell me

Benchmarks

Benches are defined here

Running

To profile how rmx performs on your system:

cargo bench

Comparison

| remove | rmx | rm | rmt | rmd | |-------------------------------------------|--------|--------|--------|--------| | files |4.9297ms|19.991ms|10.003ms|9.2056ms| | recursively nested folders |4.9784ms|20.122ms|10.135ms|9.3328ms| | multiple deeply nested folders |4.8809ms|19.504ms|10.308ms|9.2406ms| | multiple deeply nested folders (rip mode) |4.2580ms| - | - | - |

numbers obtained on a Alienware M15 R6, at commit: 34e1e5a2

rmx consistently scores better performance while offering the same API as GNU rm

Examples

Deleting deeply nested directory (blazingly fast)

rmx --rip node_modules

Sending files to system trash bin

rmx file1 file2 -t

Follow symlinks (unix only)

rmx --follow-links link

Wipe a file and make it unrecoverable

rmx --shred file

Standard GNU rm usage

• rmx --one-file-system -i *.txt handles more glob matching args, rm panics at ~10k+ matches`
• rmx --preserve-root=/home --interactive=once /home/*/*
• rmx --verbose -rf --no-preserve-root /

Installation

Source

From crates.io

cargo install rmx

Binaries

AUR: yay rmx-bin

Prebuilt binaries

Find all release targets here

Latest linux-musl binary

Pro-tip:

Put in your favorite shell rc file: alias rm='rmx'

Disclaimer

1. Do not trust this tool for automation/production usage, this is not a 1:1 port of GNU rm and the underlying system calls are not the same.
2. You may experience different performance results, overall rmx improves the computation load. I/O might still be your biggest bottleneck.
3. Making the contents of a file unrecoverable is not a fully trusted operation nowadays.