How to recover a file you accidentally deleted?

If you $HOME is on a ZFS file system[1] you can easily retrieve files you deleted from an automatic snapshot created by the system.

Just cd into the hidden .zfs directory and select one snapshot:

cd ~/.zfs/snapshot/
ls

Under each of the directories you will see your $HOME as it looked like at some point in the past. Just copy the wanted files from there to your actual $HOME and all should be alright again.

[1] Easy to find out with this command

mount | grep $(whoami)

If the line starts with a server named like s09. if it starts with hsm or the line contains qsm this will not work for you.

-- CarstenAulbert - 23 Jul 2010