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simple Trash question

K

kvdv

macrumors member
Original poster
Apr 5, 2008
60
0
When i open the Trash, i can sort everything by file name, by date modified or date created. But the most logical way of sorting the files would be "date deleted", but somehow i can't find out how to do this.
I really hope this is possible!.. :)
 
If there's still stuff in the trash then it hasn't been deleted. You need to empty trash to get rid of them.
 
kvdv said:
When i open the Trash, i can sort everything by file name, by date modified or date created. But the most logical way of sorting the files would be "date deleted", but somehow i can't find out how to do this.
I really hope this is possible!.. :)
Click to expand...
In OS X the implementation of a "safe delete function" (Trash) is badly crippled.

It would be nice if Trash allowed viewing the date of deletion.

It would be nice if Trash allowed single-click restoration of files to their original directories.

It would be nice if Trash allowed deletion of individual files from the Trash.

It would be nice if Trash allowed ....

There is tremendous pressure on Apple not to repair Trash and make it functional because then it would be too much like the hated Windows with its fully functional Recycle Bin.
 
Cromulent said:
If it is in the trash then it has not been deleted rendering the above option useless.
Click to expand...
Lack of thought makes the quoted post useless.

But, to avoid bruising the sensibilities of those Mac fanatics that feel the need to fall back on semantics to rationalize their weak defenses of Mac's failings, I hereby formally reword my comment:

It would be nice if Trash allowed viewing the date of trashing.
 
Nick T. said:
In OS X the implementation of a "safe delete function" (Trash) is badly crippled.

It would be nice if Trash allowed viewing the date of deletion.

It would be nice if Trash allowed single-click restoration of files to their original directories.

It would be nice if Trash allowed deletion of individual files from the Trash.

It would be nice if Trash allowed ....

There is tremendous pressure on Apple not to repair Trash and make it functional because then it would be too much like the hated Windows with its fully functional Recycle Bin.
Click to expand...

i agree. this is what it should look like… who knows i might even have access to the 10.5.3 beta?
 
Haha :)

Indeed, that's what i'm looking for!

Maybe there's 3rd party software supporting these features?

-Kris
 
think different™. if the date deleted were an important part of the trash function apple would surely have included it. man i love apple!

you're probably a switcher from one of those operating systems like linux or unix or windows that allowed the antiquated notion of knowing when you deleted stuff.

/fanboy blindness.

now that's out of the way, yes, this is yet another crucial function missing from the hackneyed trash folder. hopefully os x will join the other 99% of operating systems out there someday and let us see when we sent files into the trash.
 
kvdv
When i open the Trash, i can sort everything by file name, by date modified or date created. But the most logical way of sorting the files would be "date deleted", but somehow i can't find out how to do this.
I really hope this is possible!..
Click to expand...

May I ask why the date is important? In all my years of using Macs, not once did this need come up. Curious about the rationale of this.:confused:

My concept of the trash function is simple - I no longer need that item, so it goes into trash and gets deleted.
 
Nick T. said:
Lack of thought makes the quoted post useless.
Click to expand...

It wasen't lack of thought at all. You said deleted and thus I responded to that.

If you meant something else perhaps you should of put what you meant rather than expecting people to read your mind? I'm not in the habit of assuming what people really mean.

Nick T. said:
But, to avoid bruising the sensibilities of those Mac fanatics that feel the need to fall back on semantics to rationalize their weak defenses of Mac's failings, I hereby formally reword my comment:

It would be nice if Trash allowed viewing the date of trashing.
Click to expand...

I agree it would be useful. Instead of trying to attack people for being 'fanbois' as I have noticed you doing rather irritatingly in a number of threads perhaps you could try making more sensible suggestions like the one you made above.
 
IIRC, Mac OS 9 had a restore function in its Trash, am I right? Apple just inexplicably didn't put that function into OS X for whatever reason, which doesn't make sense.
 
Nick T. seems to think everyone is a fanboy, and he loves throwing stones when it isn't need.

anyway, I think the trash needs a new icon as it looks horrible in Leopard. It would be nice if there was a one click restore, but I would think it would be counterintuitive to be able to delete one item at a time, as it would cause people to store items that they actually need in the trash. It's ridiculous how many windows users treat the recycle bin as just another easy access folder.
 
tuffluffjimmy said:
Nick T. seems to think everyone is a fanboy, and he loves throwing stones when it isn't need.

anyway, I think the trash needs a new icon as it looks horrible in Leopard. It would be nice if there was a one click restore, but I would think it would be counterintuitive to be able to delete one item at a time, as it would cause people to store items that they actually need in the trash. It's ridiculous how many windows users treat the recycle bin as just another easy access folder.
Click to expand...

I don't think deleting one item at a time is counter intuitive. I often have a lot of large files (cd images, movies ... etc) in my trash and sometimes I want to delete just those files to recover hd space but not delete everything else. Right now, I have to resort to moving them out of the trash and deleting them with the command line which is quite a hassle.
 
tuffluffjimmy said:
it would cause people to store items that they actually need in the trash. It's ridiculous how many windows users treat the recycle bin as just another easy access folder.
Click to expand...

I completely agree, I view the Trash as a system of redundency so that if I accidentally delete something, I can quickly grab it and put it back where it belongs. I agree that a restore option would be useful for that, but as for a "sort by date trashed" option, it seems a bit useless. If I conciously move something to the trash, I almost always empty the trash right after, so I only ever have a couple of files in the Trash at most. I don't see what is the point of having something in the trash if you think you might need it later?
 
6mt15 said:
I completely agree, I view the Trash as a system of redundency so that if I accidentally delete something, I can quickly grab it and put it back where it belongs. I agree that a restore option would be useful for that, but as for a "sort by date trashed" option, it seems a bit useless. If I conciously move something to the trash, I almost always empty the trash right after, so I only ever have a couple of files in the Trash at most. I don't see what is the point of having something in the trash if you think you might need it later?
Click to expand...
My friend, who has been an Apple user since before the Macintosh, read this post and said:
It's close-minded people like this that give us Mac users a bad name! Just because a few individuals aren't smart enough to see the value of any given function doesn't mean that the function has no value. Sheeesh!
Click to expand...
Both my Mac and my PC have uncounted features and functions that I have no need for and do not use. That does not mean that I think that they should be removed, nor that people that use them are somehow retarded, or switchers, or fanboys; they are just features that I do not need or have not discovered.

<blasphemy ON> Steve Jobs is not Jesus Christ! <blasphemy OFF>
 
use spotlight?

Spotlight finds things in the trash, too. Maybe they think they've solved the problem of finding stuff you threw away, and they don't need to implement sorting by date moved? Does the OS keep track of any other "moved by" date?
 
Nick T. said:
Both my Mac and my PC have uncounted features and functions that I have no need for and do not use. That does not mean that I think that they should be removed, nor that people that use them are somehow retarded, or switchers, or fanboys; they are just features that I do not need or have not discovered.
Click to expand...

Maybe you missed my point...I was simply commenting on the fact that such a feature would not be very useful for a person who uses their computer the way I do. I'm sure every single person has different habits in regards to how often they empty their Trash, and what they place in it. If anything, I am genuinely curious as to why someone would have a file that they may still want on their computer sitting in the Trash can. It seems like a dangerous practice.

Nick T. said:
<blasphemy ON> Steve Jobs is not Jesus Christ! <blasphemy OFF>
Click to expand...

Is that really relevant??
 
Trash problem

kvdv said:
When i open the Trash, i can sort everything by file name, by date modified or date created. But the most logical way of sorting the files would be "date deleted", but somehow i can't find out how to do this.
I really hope this is possible!.. :)
Click to expand...

I can't help but I'd like to say, as a new Mac user, I am really frustrated by this. Yesterday I performed a mass deletion of unwanted files, but - my fault entirely - about 16 really important files went with them. My trash bin is quite full because I want the option of restoring stuff if I delete it by accident. So I go into Trash to find and restore the important files, and what do I discover? That I cannot sort the contents of trash by "date deleted" and therefore there is no way of telling which babies went out with the bathwater. I then had to go individually through more than 1,000 files and guess which ones had been affected by the original deletion. To me, this is a serious argument against swapping Windows for Mac.
 
I think I figured out a way to arrange your trash by date deleted. It involves Stacks, so it'll only work in Leopard.

Go to the Finder, press cmd+shift+G to bring up the "Go" menu, type in ~/.Trash , and drag the folder icon from the title bar down to the dock to make it a stack. Now, ctrl/2tap/right click on your new stack and click "date added" under "sort by", and click "grid" under "view content as".

Curious that you have to do it with a stack instead of having a column for it in the Finder, but hey, it works for now.
 
I shall have a look at that when I get back home .. I may need some clarification on "2tap" etc (ok, ok, but I'm just starting). Meantime many thanks for taking the trouble. If anyone else has a fix for identifying just-deleted trash, please pitch in.
 
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