I often want temp files. Putting them in /tmp means that they will automatically be discarded on reboot -- kind of handy. But it means that they are public: they are in a space shared with all other users (if you have other users). I consider it a bad habit for that reason. Lots of people put temp files in the current directory or in their home directory. That's what I do. But then, when you come back a week later, how do you know that this file is garbage? The best way is to have a naming convention. Many people use tmp, tmp2, tmp3 as names. I find those visually too like real filenames and longer to type than I want. The names I use are 0, 1, 2, 3. They are short, distinctive, and unreasonable as permanent filenames. You can find the litter you left behind with: locate -r '/[0-9]$' You will notice that the system does have some files that match too so you cannot blindly delete all matches. To me, it is obvious. But I didn't think of it. I copied this from Chris Sturgess almost 30 years ago.