prune

Review tracks that have been removed from your Spotify playlist and — optionally — move their local files to the system trash.

Prune never hard-deletes files. It uses the system trash, so files can be recovered if you change your mind.

Usage

spotify-sync prune [options]

Options

Flag	Default	Description
--dry-run	false	Show what would be moved to trash without actually doing it.
--yes	false	Move files to trash without prompting for confirmation.
--json	false	Output as JSON.

What it does

1. Compares local database records against the current Spotify playlist.
2. Identifies tracks that are in the database but no longer in the playlist.
3. Lists those tracks and their local file paths.
4. Without --yes or --dry-run, prompts: Delete N files? [y/N]
5. On confirmation (or with --yes), moves the files to the system trash.
6. Updates the database to remove the pruned track records.

Exit codes

Code	Meaning
0	Prune completed (or nothing to prune, or dry run completed).
1	Error during prune.

Examples

# See what would be pruned, without touching anything
spotify-sync prune --dry-run

# Prune with interactive confirmation prompt
spotify-sync prune

# Prune without prompting (useful in scripts)
spotify-sync prune --yes

# Machine-readable output of what was pruned
spotify-sync prune --yes --json

Example output

Will move 3 file(s) to trash:
  - Seal - Kiss From a Rose
    /Users/you/Music/wcs/Kiss From a Rose - Seal.mp3
  - Earth, Wind & Fire - September
    /Users/you/Music/wcs/September - Earth Wind & Fire.mp3
  - Grover Washington Jr. - Just the Two of Us
    /Users/you/Music/wcs/Just the Two of Us - Grover Washington Jr.mp3
Delete 3 files? [y/N] y
Trashed: Seal - Kiss From a Rose
Trashed: Earth, Wind & Fire - September
Trashed: Grover Washington Jr. - Just the Two of Us

Done. trashed=3 missing=0 failed=0

Files go to trash, not permanent deletion

prune uses the system trash (macOS Trash / Linux trash). You can restore files from there if you accidentally prune something you wanted to keep.