The Trash is a place for deleted files, from where they can be restored or permanently deleted. Usually, "Trash" is used for Linux and Unix systems whereas Windows uses "Recycle Bin"
Questions tagged [trash]
109 questions
40
votes
4 answers
Quickly Empty Trash in Mac OS X
Emptying the trash in OS X can be a long process, especially If you have lots of items (like me). This is after 5 minutes:
Is there a way to quickly empty the trash, or make the process a whole lot quicker?
Josh Hunt
- 21,369
20
votes
4 answers
Linux: Command to empty recycle bin
What is the shell command to empty the garbage bin under Linux?
Rob
- 201
16
votes
3 answers
How to tell where an item in the Trash came from?
The Mac OS X 10.6 Trash shows an option "Put back" for files that were trashed after installing 10.6. However, it does not show where the file will be put back to.
So: using Finder, is there any way to tell where a trashed item came from?
(I know…
Arjan
- 31,511
14
votes
1 answer
Why does emptying the trash in Snow Leopard take so long?
Since installing Mac OS X 10.6, whenever I empty the trash, it takes about 50x as long as it used to under 10.5. I just emptied about 100 files (totaling 50 megs / all local files), and it was about 20 minutes.
It feels like its doing a secure…
ericvg
- 1,296
13
votes
7 answers
Move file to Trash on Snow Leopard from Terminal
Snow Leopard allows users to "Put Back" files that were moved to the Trash from Finder. However, when I do mv ~/.Trash from the command line I don't get the "Put Back" option.
Is there a native command in Snow Leopard that moves a file to the…
matpie
- 1,650
12
votes
5 answers
How to restore all the files from trash in Mac OS X?
I can put back the items one by one, but there are too many files, how could I restore all the files in the trash?
xdazz
- 253
- 1
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- 9
12
votes
2 answers
Where is the recycle bin in Finder on Mac OS X?
At the bottom of my screen there is the recycle bin. Is there someway to unpin it from there?
By the way, where is the recycle bin in Finder?
Pacerier
- 28,143
11
votes
3 answers
Empty the contents of Trash for only a single volume
How can I empty the Trash only for an attached external drive, but not at the same time for the internal hard disk?
Thilo
- 3,425
10
votes
3 answers
Safe substitute for OS X `rm`?
I am used to having rm to alias something safer.
I have been using osx-trash, but once I upgrade to Ruby 1.9.2, this stops working.
I know about trash-cli from Python, but I would much prefer something that moves files to the Trash folder in OS X…
xjq233p_1
- 871
9
votes
1 answer
Why is rm -rf ~/.Trash/* much faster than clicking "empty trash"?
On a Mac computer, when you write
rm -rf ~/.Trash/*
in the terminal, it almost instantly deletes all the files in the Trash.
But when I click "empty trash", it takes forever to delete them all.
9
votes
9 answers
How can I speed up the deleting of very large directories on XP?
I regularly check out incredibly huge directories onto my XP machine. When it comes down to deleting and finally trashing them, it takes forever. Is there any way to speed this process up?
Christek
- 195
9
votes
2 answers
A file is still in use when trying to empty the Trash – how can I remove it?
When you try to empty the Trash in OS X, and there is a file still open in an application, you receive the dialog:
The operation can't be completed because the item "…" is in use.
How can I find out which application or which process still uses…
slhck
- 235,242
8
votes
2 answers
gvfsd-trash's way of clearing the trash
One of the way that make the laptop reach for its limits is when its clearing up the trash in a gnome based DE with nautilus based FM. With the trash has about a plethora of files (for example, a copy of the whole android open source project)…
user128712
- 629
7
votes
2 answers
How is the "secure empty trash" option on Mac OS X any more secure than emptying it normally?
On Mac OS X there is an option for securely emptying the trash. How is this any more secure than emptying the trash the normal way? Does it overwrite the old data instead of just erasing it?
Wuffers
- 19,619
7
votes
5 answers
Mac always warns "You can't undo this action" and skips the Trash when deleting a file
I repaired the permissions on my iMac and am now getting this dialog box whenever I delete something. I checked Finder > Preferences and "Empty Trash Securely" and "Show Warning" are both unchecked. When I delete a file I get a confirmation box and…
roflwaffle
- 1,820