Move file to Trash instead of permanently deleting in Mac Terminal

When you make use of the rm (remove) command on the Mac Terminal, the files and folders are permanently deleted, you will not be finding them in the Trash. This can be really risky if you remove a folder or a file that is important by mistake because you may not be able to recover them.

In such cases, it is better to make use of the mv command instead of rm to move files and folders to the Trash folder. You can find the trash folder under your home directory. It is a hidden folder with the name .Trash.

Let's see some examples of moving files and folders to Trash using the Mac Terminal Command.

Move file to Trash using Terminal

 % mv myfile.txt ~/.Trash/

Move a folder to Trash using Terminal

 % mv myfolder ~/.Trash