FileGuard
A one-click, no-terminal safety net that watches your Documents, Downloads, and project folders and lets any non-technical user rewind a bad delete, accidental overwrite, or botched drag-and-drop in seconds.
Writers, students, photographers, and small business owners who manage their own files and fear losing them
- Always-on watch on chosen folders, no shell or hooks required
- One-click 'show what I just deleted' with thumbnails and original paths
- Selective restore: bring back a single file, a whole folder, or rewind a folder to yesterday
- Encrypted local recycle vault with a configurable size cap and auto-purge
A viral open-source CLI proved the underlying trick — hardlink-based, command-granular filesystem undo without snapshots — now the same idea can ship as a polished tray app for the millions who would never touch a shell hook.
Universal pain point but already served by free OS-level Trash/Recycle Bin, built-in File History/Time Machine, and popular free tools (Recuva, Disk Drill free 500MB, EaseUS free 2GB) — incremental demand for a dedicated tray app is modest.I Evaluated the 11 Best Free Data Recovery Software in 2026 ↗GitHub - chiefmikey/terminal-undo: CLI tool that adds undo capability ↗
Crowded market: native OS recovery (Recycle Bin/Trash, File History, Time Machine) plus dozens of free/paid tools (Recuva, Disk Drill, EaseUS, Puran, Glary Undelete, Wise, MiniTool) and trash CLI alternatives (trash-cli, trashy, gtrash) leave little differentiated room.trashy - fast and featureful alternative to rm - LinuxLinks ↗
Hard to monetize: Disk Drill Pro ~$89, EaseUS ~$70/yr, Recuva Pro are established but the category is dominated by free tiers and OS-native recovery, limiting willingness to pay for yet another wrapper.EaseUS vs. Disk Drill: Check out the 2026 review - Setapp ↗Recuva Pricing (2026): Explore Plans, Features & Key Insights ↗
Accidental deletes and botched file ops are a permanent human problem; demand will endure as long as filesystems and non-technical users exist.
Hardlink-based undo is technically neat but fragile across platforms: hardlinks unreliable on Windows outside NTFS, require admin/cooperative FS, and the source CLI tool is a modest ★100-scale hobby project — wrapping it as a cross-platform tray app with safety guarantees is non-trivial.GitHub - chiefmikey/terminal-undo: CLI tool that adds undo capability ↗