Migrate Media File Delete Contrib to Core

There is also File Delete → with 14,312 reported installs

The File Delete module adds the ability to easily delete files —both private and public— within Drupal administration.

It changes files from the "Permanent" status to the "Temporary" status. These files will be deleted by Drupal during its cron runs.

If a file is registered as being used somewhere, the Module will not allow it to be deleted.

+1 from me, it has good test coverage and very little code

I suppose the 'Media File Delete settings' that live in the contrib module at /admin/config/media/media_file_delete/settings would live in core at /admin/config/media/media-settings

Moving to Drupal core ideas queue for consensus as to whether or not to move forward with the proposed idea to merge the functionality of the Media File Delete contrib module into Core.

Big +1 from me.

I would have assumed that deleting a media entity would also delete the files that were uploaded into that entity, and I think that is probably what a lot of content editors and site builders would have expected.

Think about the workflow from the point of view of a content editor who receives a request to delete an image:

1. We need to remove this image because (for instance) a person in it has withdrawn their consent.
2. We go to the media library and delete the image (aka the media entity, but editors don't think in terms of entities they just think about the thing they are deleting).
3. The editor think that's it done, they go back to the person and say that it's been deleted; But then, either: the editor check (just to be safe) and get confused when they find the image still actually exists, or they don't check and the person that originally requested the deletion sends a follow-up request asking why it was not actually deleted even though the editor said it was.

So, yes I'm 100% to this.

+1 from me, too. The lack of this functionality is really the only reason I'm hesitant about using Media for images. I don't want to accrue lots of orphan files over time.

Broadly +1 to this too, but we also need to resolve 🌱 Dealing with unexpected file deletion due to incorrect file usage Active . Potentially this could be the answer - make file deletion not automatic, but explicit and opt-in, and then assume that people aren't re-using the same file across media items and in other random places and deleting it without checking. Then just drop the entire file_usage system with no replacement.

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Fwiw The current module doesn't show the option if file usage detects has a record of another usage

It also integrates with entity usage if that is available

+1 from me. This feels like table stakes for any file-based media type. I think deleting the associated file should be the default behavior; if it's not in the CMS, it doesn't make sense (from my own personal user perspective) for it to persist in the filesystem.

The Ideas project is being deprecated. As discussed in a core committer meeting issues that are adding modules are being moved to the Drupal CMS project for discussion.

I'm not sure why this didn't make it into 1.0.

With my Media maintainer hat on:

I don't even think we should add this to Drupal CMS. This should be converted to a core issue and the functionality should be merged into core directly. It's mind-boggling that it's not there already.

With my Site Builder hat on, +1000 to #17 ✨ Migrate Media File Delete Contrib to Core Active (FWIW :) )

Let's do that. I'm gonna jump the gun a bit and assume this should be a priority for 11.3.0. It's kind of nuts that core doesn't already support this, and it shouldn't be a heavy lift at all to merge the module into the main Media module.

Linking a known bug with i18n in the contrib module

All our projects have file deletion on usage 0 enabled and it works generally well, especially when files are mostly used on media entities.

Instead of a manual option, what I'd consider to restore is the old behavior of file usage removal, which didn't mark it as temporary to then remove it hours later but delete it immediately. Far less confusing IMHO and doesn't require a decision by the editor. Could be both as well, only show the manual option if automatic deletion isn't enabled.

Wasn't file usage kind of deprecated as a concept because it has never really worked? That's what I heard a few DrupalCons ago, anyway.

This will need framework manager review for the proposed changes to extant core APIs and subsystem maintainer sign-off (I would qualify except I wrote the patch).

It was disabled, yes. And I think there are some remaining issues with editor and revisions, but we don't use that. The last issue that affected us (when using file exclusively through media entities) was 🌱 Dealing with unexpected file deletion due to incorrect file usage Active . See the issue that @catch linked.

We've had it enabled for years and haven't seen a file deletion related to a bug in a long time. We sometimes have cases where editors link directly to files and that can break, that could possibly be prevented by better tooling.

🌱 Add a reliable entity-usage system to core Active is where we ended up on the file_usage issue - trying to bring entity_usage into core and deprecate file_usage. It is not really moving but I don't see another way to make it work.

I have a site that was experiencing missing files, this site has been around since Drupal 4.5, there is no way to rebuild the file_usage table, so it likely has examples of every file_usage bug since it was introduced and no matter how many we fix it's never corrected retrospectively.