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Instead of deleting anything, my scripts usually mv files to a timestamped folder under /tmp. In practical terms, it’s rarely a noticeable difference in performance or disk usage. Also makes scripts easier to debug when you can inspect transient artifacts.

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I manage large video/audio assets, so disk usage is very noticeable. I've done the mv to a designated trash folder with another script that finds files in that folder older than designated time to live and then -exec rm -f {} \; type of stuff. Even typing that out still gives me pause. Nobody ever needs a file with such urgency as just 24 hours after it was deleted, but not in the designated time out window.

My workstation machines take hourly(+at boot+on demand) snapshots of the filesystem. Doing it on the system level is a lot simpler than repeating the logic over and over, and /tmp is often a different mount then where the files first resided so moving things over there is a copy+delete.

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