Switcher - Understanding the Trash

[blodwyn]

Hi

As a recent switcher and ex-Windows user, Windows could be set to a maximum size that the recycle bin would grow to. I haven't found whether my new PB does this or not. Using SmartTrash I'm keeping my Mac HD under control manually, but I'm watching the Trash on my 40G external drive grow to around 9Gb so far.

My question is: will the Trash continue to grow until I run out of disk space or does Panther 10.3.5 manage the Trash more intelligently, and are there any settings I can change to set things like maximum size of the Trash, permanently delete after 'n' days, or any utilities that automatically deal with it?

Thanks

[vraxtus]

Hi

As a recent switcher and ex-Windows user, Windows could be set to a maximum size that the recycle bin would grow to. I haven't found whether my new PB does this or not. Using SmartTrash I'm keeping my Mac HD under control manually, but I'm watching the Trash on my 40G external drive grow to around 9Gb so far.

My question is: will the Trash continue to grow until I run out of disk space or does Panther 10.3.5 manage the Trash more intelligently, and are there any settings I can change to set things like maximum size of the Trash, permanently delete after 'n' days, or any utilities that automatically deal with it?

Thanks


I'm not exactly sure what you want to do with it... If you're trying to free up space, click and hold down on the Trash icon, and select "Empty Trash". That will remove all items in the Trash folder and delete them.

[kgarner]

There may be some third party stuff. Have you looked at www.macupdate.com or www.versiontracker.com? That would be where I look. As for your other question. The Trash is really more of a storage bin that has the ability to be emptied. Think of it like any other folder. Until the trash is emptied, anything in it is still on your hard drive and the space will continue to shrink until you empty it.

[SiliconAddict]

I'm not exactly sure what you want to do with it... If you're trying to free up space, click and hold down on the Trash icon, and select "Empty Trash". That will remove all items in the Trash folder and delete them.


You can set a defined size the recycle bin can grow to in Windows before it starts removing the oldest items. Its very useful if you are dealing with a smaller hard drive or very large files on a day to day basis.

http://home.comcast.net/~jonnormand/XPShots/Trash.jpg

IMHO if OS X can't do this I'm going to call it a bad design. If nothing else have the default set to 100% of the drive and let the user go from there. :confused:

[blodwyn]

I'm not exactly sure what you want to do with it... If you're trying to free up space, click and hold down on the Trash icon, and select "Empty Trash". That will remove all items in the Trash folder and delete them.

With Windows, I could just delete stuff and it would go to the recycle bin. But when the recycle bin reached a certain size, say 10% of the disk space, Windows would start deleting older content to maintain it's maximum size within the set limit. This meant I didn't have to worry about it gradually filling up the hard disk. I was just wondering whether the Mac did anything similar, but it seems not, although I'll try looking around for any utilities that can help.

Also, the Mac 'all-or-nothing' emptying option is a bit drastic, which is why I like Smart Trash, as it allows me to selectively delete files permanently.

Thanks for your replies

[blodwyn]

Now that I know I need a utility, a quick Google turned up some options, links below. I'll check them out

http://www.mireth.com/pub/ttme.html

http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/14466

Thanks

[decksnap]

Hmm. Seems to me you shouldn't put anything in the trash unless you are trying to get rid of it. Why would you let your trash folder grow to a huge size if the stuff you put in there is to be erased anyway? Microsoft's idea seems interesting, but almost useless.

[wordmunger]

Hmm. Seems to me you shouldn't put anything in the trash unless you are trying to get rid of it. Why would you let your trash folder grow to a huge size if the stuff you put in there is to be erased anyway? Microsoft's idea seems interesting, but almost useless.
Seems like a good idea to me. It doesn't take much for my trash folder to get ungodly big. Just because Microsoft came up with it doesn't mean it isn't a good idea.

[decksnap]

That's fine- I'm just saying, why did you put it in the trash if you don't want to delete it? The theory of KEEPING a certain amount of files in the trash only benefits those who accidentally trash things- which even if you do on a Mac is not lost until you empty it- and at the same time wastes a consistent amount of disk space. I just don't understand the idea of having a fixed amount or percentage of my disk space wasted at all times.

[SiliconAddict]

Seems like a good idea to me. It doesn't take much for my trash folder to get ungodly big. Just because Microsoft came up with it doesn't mean it isn't a good idea.


Ditto. How many user might be out there that delete movies, pictures and other misc junk until their hard drive is completely full resulting in some sort of error message. Having user "just know" that they need to empty their bin once in a while is about as intuitive as having user just know they should defrag their PC once every few months. Again not a good design IMHO. Of course YMMV with that opinion. :p

[SiliconAddict]

That's fine- I'm just saying, why did you put it in the trash if you don't want to delete it? The theory of KEEPING a certain amount of files in the trash only benefits those who accidentally trash things- which even if you do on a Mac is not lost until you empty it- and at the same time wastes a consistent amount of disk space. I just don't understand the idea of having a fixed amount or percentage of my disk space wasted at all times.

Then why have a recycle bin at all? The only use for it is to recover files that you need back and I'm willing to bet you don't need a few years worth of data to be recoverable. You've heard the term burning both ends of the candle right? In this case you are eating both ends of the candle with the end result of having a filled hard drive. Better that you can specify that you want the recycle bin to use 0%-100% of the drive and let the user make the choice what he or she wants to save. Apple's method is...er...somewhat primitive.

Then again MS's is kinda flaky as well. I've seen weird behavior under the 'bin where you delete the a directory with subdirectories in it and when you restore that directory it doesn't restore the subs. Or it restores the subs but only so deep. Or it restores the entire folder structure but leaves out the files in the subs. MS programming at its finest. :(

[Counterfit]

I'm still trying to figure out how you guys are putting stuff in the Trash and having it take up more space then before... :confused:

[osprey76]

Ditto. How many user might be out there that delete movies, pictures and other misc junk until their hard drive is completely full resulting in some sort of error message. Having user "just know" that they need to empty their bin once in a while is about as intuitive as having user just know they should defrag their PC once every few months. Again not a good design IMHO. Of course YMMV with that opinion. :p

I would tend to agree with the "your trash set to use 10% of your hard drive is silly" argument. However, you make an excellent point. I generally empty my trash fairly often. My mother is not nearly as computer savvy and I nearly always find months worth of deleted files in her trash (usually since I was in town last, basically). So, a percentage or time setting for her would make sense. On the other hand, I don't like the idea of the system just deleting files on its own. Having some sort of option to do one or the other would give you both worlds, though.

[wordmunger]

I'm still trying to figure out how you guys are putting stuff in the Trash and having it take up more space then before... :confused:

Make backup. Do more work. Make another backup. put first backup in trash. Repeat.

[decksnap]

Then why have a recycle bin at all? The only use for it is to recover files that you need back and I'm willing to bet you don't need a few years worth of data to be recoverable. :(

The point of the trash is a failsafe between the 'delete' button and the computer actually designating that space for rewrite. Hit delete, -oops, deleted the wrong one - go get it from the trash. If you have files in the trash that aren't trash- pull them out of the trash! If they're trash, empty the trash! So simple. So easy.

[quidire]

This really isn't that complicated:

Why do we have a trash bin? In order to allow for us to retrieve files and directories that we may have accidentally deleted. Once the decision is made to delete there is no reason to empty the bin! Circumstances may change, one may yet want to have access to that file someday. There is no functional reason to empty the bin after the file has been examined and determined to be delete-worthy.

Space is obviously an issue. The computer oughtn't crash because the refuse in the bin has accumulated to the point where temp files and the like cannot be created. There is however a middle ground.

I agree with Silicon Addict (http://forums.macrumors.com/member.php?userid=18104), in that while the behavior of the bin should initially be to store until emptied (current behavior), the user should be able to adjust it to indicate a maximum size that the bin can occupy.

Should the incoming file (that is being sent to the trash bin) exceed that maximum size that the bin can occupy, then it is deleted entirely (bit bucket, /dev/null etc) should it be smaller it should be moved to the bin, and then should the bin be larger than the maximum alloted to it, files would be deleted in order of age (oldest first) to shrink it back to an appropriate size.

This setup starts out safe (the computer never deleting anything, default behavior is the same as status quo) and can be set up to provide the greatest structural utility.

-RS

[kgarner]

I think it would be great if OS X implemented this feature from Windows, but maybe make it time based. I don't particularly care how big the Trash Can gets, but I like how Mail will delete emials in the Deleted Items folder that are X days old. For me, it makes more sense to say if I haven't needed if X days/weeks/months then I really don't need it. Both options would be a welcome addition. I may even check out some of these utilities.

[decksnap]

Well I guess we'll agree to disagree! :)

[emw]

Now that I know I need a utility, a quick Google turned up some options, links below. I'll check them out

http://www.mireth.com/pub/ttme.html

http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/14466

Thanks

While there may be some debate as to if people should use these or just simply delete files when they want to delete them, a quick look at these tools seems to indicate some nice features.

The 2nd one (Freaky trash) has a nice feature that you can set up multiple trash bins with apparently different settings. I don't know if each could have a different hot-key (Command-Option-something) or a contextual menu setting to choose the bin you want, but that would be slick.

I'll have to download and find out...

[bousozoku]

You can set a defined size the recycle bin can grow to in Windows before it starts removing the oldest items. Its very useful if you are dealing with a smaller hard drive or very large files on a day to day basis.

IMHO if OS X can't do this I'm going to call it a bad design. If nothing else have the default set to 100% of the drive and let the user go from there. :confused:

Bad design? I fail to see why you would put things in the Recycle Bin if you don't intend to delete them. I would never put things into the Recycle Bin if I meant for them to be there and would empty it immediately. Still, with the confirmation dialog turned off, it would ask me if I wanted to delete them. That's bad design.

[blodwyn]

Wow, didn't mean to start a religious war.....

I agree that when I delete something, I intend to delete it (duh).
There have been times when I have wanted to recover something from the Recycle Bin/ Trash, cause I'm a human being that makes mistakes sometimes. I guess I'm not alone otherwise the Trash wouldn't exist as a feature.

I'm doing some tinkering with Garage Band, recording some guitar stuff, and audio recordings take up a lot of space if you do multiple takes. This means the Trash grows quite quickly. I can put up with emptying it manually, but it would be good (for me) if it could be automated in some way.

Having the option to set rules for automatic Trash maintenance would be great. Maybe not everyone would need or use this facility, but I would.

I'm lovin my Mac though, and will not be buying another PC

[rueyeet]

Actually, the part I like about the Recycle Bin in Windows is that you can turn it off (the "Do not move files to the Recycle Bin" check box in the earlier screen shot). In several years of using it that way, I have yet to delete something I didn't mean to.

As for OS X's Trash, I treat it the same way I do my non-personal Outlook folders: periodically scan for anything I should keep and save it, and delete the rest. And that's when I don't simply empty the Trash the second I put something in it.

In any case, reclaiming the space taken up by trashed files is as simple as making it a part of your routine to check through and empty your trash every so often. It's not like takes some huge amount of discipline. I'd personally prefer control over the process than having something auto-trashed because I forgot to look in there in time.

I do wonder if a quick AppleScript may be capable of auto-emptying the Trash, say on logout, or once a day, or whatever. I'm not an AppleScript expert, though.

[kant]

IMHO if OS X can't do this I'm going to call it a bad design. If nothing else have the default set to 100% of the drive and let the user go from there. :confused:

I agree with you on this.

I guess those who don't have never deleted something and realized two days later that they really did need that file. *shrug*

[7on]

hmmm, it wouldn't be too hard... the Trash is actually a folder in ~/.Trash

Maybe a terminal command to empty the contents of ~/.Trash and set it up on login or as a cron script that runs once a day or something.

[bousozoku]

Wow, didn't mean to start a religious war.....

I agree that when I delete something, I intend to delete it (duh).
There have been times when I have wanted to recover something from the Recycle Bin/ Trash, cause I'm a human being that makes mistakes sometimes. I guess I'm not alone otherwise the Trash wouldn't exist as a feature.

I'm doing some tinkering with Garage Band, recording some guitar stuff, and audio recordings take up a lot of space if you do multiple takes. This means the Trash grows quite quickly. I can put up with emptying it manually, but it would be good (for me) if it could be automated in some way.

Having the option to set rules for automatic Trash maintenance would be great. Maybe not everyone would need or use this facility, but I would.

I'm lovin my Mac though, and will not be buying another PC

I think it would be fairly simple to clean out the Trash periodically automatically. The shell script would be simple and an AppleScript to make it run periodically shouldn't be too difficult either. I'll have to think about it.

I wouldn't be so fervent about not putting things in the Trash/Recycle Bin but I've managed servers and user machines where they put things in temporary holding spots like those and then, the server fills up and they're the first ones to scream "I can't send e-mail! I can't login to the server! My machine is slow!" :D

[paxtonandrew]

If you are worried about Trash taking up space, why don't you control click the trash can, and empty the bugger:eek:. I have always managed my Mac HD that way (since system 7) and never had any problems doing so.

[MisterMe]

I think it would be great if OS X implemented this feature from Windows, but maybe make it time based. I don't particularly care how big the Trash Can gets, but I like how Mail will delete emials in the Deleted Items folder that are X days old. For me, it makes more sense to say if I haven't needed if X days/weeks/months then I really don't need it. Both options would be a welcome addition. I may even check out some of these utilities.You sound like a hopeless Windows user. The Mac is not a version of Windows. Apple's current trash behavior was added as a part of System 7. System 6 trash emptied when you shutdown your computer. The System 7 behavior is excellent. Deleting the trash requires an affirmative decision by the user. When the trash is emptied by menu command, the System 7 through MacOS X 10 default requires the user to verify the command. The verification requirement may be turned off. When emptying trash via the MacOS X 10 Dock, the user must click on the Trash Basket and select Empty Trash from the pop-up menu.

Trash is emptied only at the request of the user. Prior to emptying the Trash, the user may inspect it at any time. I have no sympathy for the children who need to the computer to empty the Trash for them. Disaster Scenario (capacity-based): You inadvertently put the final draft of your research paper in the trash. You deliberately place that 10 minute porn clip in the trash, which triggers your Trash to empty. Now, guess what gets deleted before you can change your mind? Disaster Scenario (time-based): You put the final draft of your term paper in the trash an hour before you leave for Spring Break and a wonderful week at the beach. Half-way through your vacation you realize that its your good copy that's in the Trash. You don't worry because your trash is set to delete files after a week, but you will be home in time for you to retrieve your file. Well, you plane gets delayed. When you start-up your computer, poof goes your paper because it has been in the Trash longer than seven days.

One of Apple's old taglines was "The Power to be Your Best." That means that the Mac places the power in the hands of the user. However, the user must be mature enough to accept the power and smart enough to use it. If you are so lazy that you cannot empty your own Trash, then maybe a Mac is not for you. Be advised that even the most experienced user can make a mistake. One of the features of TechTools Pro is recovery of accidentally deleted files. TechTools Pro moves emptied Trash files to a hidden directory rather than deleting them.

[Powerbook G5]

I have to say that I agree with the camp that says I put things in the trash that I intend to delete. I don't see any point in just letting lots of files sit in there, if you are going to do that put a folder on your HD somewhere for storage. I for one put things in the trash that are going to be deleted real soon after I finish a round of deletions or I just bypass it altogether and delete them immediately. I guess it's just user philosophy. I've noticed that many Windows users just let the recycle bin overflow with junk and never delete anything along with the usual clutter of icons all over the desktop. On many Mac desktops, you don't see a lot of icons if any at all. Perhaps this is just another example of that diverging philosophy.

[SiliconAddict]

Trash is emptied only at the request of the user. Prior to emptying the Trash, the user may inspect it at any time. I have no sympathy for the children who need to the computer to empty the Trash for them. Disaster Scenario (capacity-based): You inadvertently put the final draft of your research paper in the trash. You deliberately place that 10 minute porn clip in the trash, which triggers your Trash to empty. Now, guess what gets deleted before you can change your mind? Disaster Scenario (time-based): You put the final draft of your term paper in the trash an hour before you leave for Spring Break and a wonderful week at the beach. Half-way through your vacation you realize that its your good copy that's in the Trash. You don't worry because your trash is set to delete files after a week, but you will be home in time for you to retrieve your file. Well, you plane gets delayed. When you start-up your computer, poof goes your paper because it has been in the Trash longer than seven days.


Is it that difficult to understand how this works?!?!
And you aren’t getting how the Windows ‘bin works. First off the bin doesn’t dump all its contents at a given time. It never does this. Its on an per file basis. Your example. The default is 10% of a drive is dedicated to the ‘bin. Lets say you dump your research paper in the bin. Then dump a file that eats all 10% of the bin. Windows will prompt saying the file can not fit in the recycling bin do you want to permanently delete it. You have the option of yet or no. [I’ve experienced this twice in my life with ripping one of my DVD’s. 10% of a 40GB drive. Think about it.] If yes it deletes the video file NOT your paper. And lets say for the sake of argument that it’s exactly 10% of your drive so it fits into the bin. Again it will prompt that its too big because the bin is smart enough to not erase the last item placed in the bin. And the bin will NOT scrub everything that is in there to make room for another honking file. Now sure three weeks, or several GB, later you may run into problems as the oldest items are purged out of that 10% to make way for new items but the point being is that Windows recycle bin gives you two things the Mac bin doesn’t:
1. Flexibility in that I can make it act exactly like a Mac by slider the slider to 100% or not.
2. You don’t have to baby-sit it to make sure you aren’t eating away at your disk space which becomes an issues when a HD becomes filled. Right now on my Tosh laptop I have a 60GB drive and I'm down to less then 4GB of free space left. (I really need to offload those movies.) I made the choice of setting the slider to two percent to keep from hitting that wall.

In my opinion it’s about flexibility. Apple’s method, like many things I’m finding in the OS the more I look at it, is shoved down your throat because its what they think is best. You use a one button mouse because that’s what you’ve used since day one. You used Finder because that’s what you’ve used since day one. You’ve dealt with their methodology surrounding the recycle bin and OS so much that to you its natural. It’s the way it should be for YOU. Have you EVER thought about it from another point of view?
Yah in the end its only a recycle bin but again I’m finding that this way of doing things is pervasive throughout OS X with flexibility coming from 3rd party apps. Which is all well and fine since Windows users get the same flexibility from 3rd party apps as well, but it just seems as if more hacks\3rd party software is required to get the OS the way YOU want it to be in OS X then in Windows. But again like the folks here defending OS X I could be a tad biased since I’ve gone through Windows 3.11, 95, 98, 98SE, NT, 2K, XP, 2003 and my Mac experience consists of a ][e, high school lab use, and the local Apple store. Is it sad when you are on a first name basis with a couple of the reps?
But even then the more I look at OS X the more I think “WTH did they do it that way.” Or “WTF is with you not being able to change that?”
OK its 2AM and I'm babbling. :p
http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/images/smiles/new_sleeping.gif

[SiliconAddict]

I've noticed that many Windows users just let the recycle bin overflow..

That's the beauty of it. It can't overflow. I think I've touched a recycle bin less then 10 times in my years dealing with windows. There is no need to empty it. It maintains itself.




I guess it's just user philosophy.

Yep :cool:

[Nermal]

I'm not 100 % certain, but I'm pretty sure that OS X asks whether you want to empty the Trash once you get down to a certain amount of HD space free.

[Abstract]

Geez you guys are a bit off lately.

Whether you agree with how the Trash folder should be used, or whether this option is needed or not, why not give the user the "option" of whether to use this or not. Hell, I empty my trash immediately after I delete something, but my stepfather doesn't. He won't delete anything from that folder, seeing as how he doesn't seem to notice the Recycle Bin in Windows. He goes on the computer and goes straight to the few things he uses: Word, IE (I've loaded Mozilla on there as well, but.... :rolleyes: ), that Picture viewer program, and.....well, that's it!!

The option of using this feature is good. Features are good, even if you don't use them because you're an "advanced" user.

[jaromski]

if you want said functionality (emptying trash on a periodic interval) then you can roll your own using a few unix utilities and cron.

in unix, cron provides a mechanism for scheduling tasks.

there are also other utilities such as find and rm that can accomplish your bidding. find all files with modications greater than X days or X months, etc.

i will give you a hint ...

find ~/.Trash/ \! -mtime -1 | <insert remove command here>

now put that in a bash script and throw it into the crontab and you have a winner.

jarom

[blodwyn]

Just to close the loop on this thread, I found a utility called Compost

http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/23510

(Quote)
Product*Description:
Compost is a preference pane and daemon combination that allows each user on a machine to specify time limits and size limits for the contents of their trash. This allows users to break the habit of emptying the trash immediately trying to save space, and regain the ability to recover from the "oops" of tossing a file unintentionally.
(End Quote)

This utility seems to do all I wanted, is a 68kb download and has a registration fee of $5

[jxyama]

That's the beauty of it. It can't overflow. I think I've touched a recycle bin less then 10 times in my years dealing with windows. There is no need to empty it. It maintains itself.

while limiting the maximum trash bin size (as found on windows) is a good option to implement - not everyone will use it but some may find it useful, so why not offer it? - but i don't like the idea of trash bin "maintaining" itself.

to have files disappear without your knowledge or acknowledgement is scary. yes, you put files in trash intending to be deleted, but still, the principle of things disappearing from "trash" on its own somehow sounds wrong... once the limit is reached, the user should be prompted that the older files will "really" be deleted..?