Space on my pen drive

[guyute]

I have a sandisk usb flash drive used for transfering of files to and from work. At work we use only pcs and have had no issues working between the two types of machines. Now I am having some issues when working on my mac. The issue I have is when I delete something on my drive the memory doesn't truly free up. It will still show that I have that space used. Any help with my problem would be great. thanks

 

[RBMaraman]

Mine does the same thing. If I eject the drive, unplug it, and plug it back in, the space reappears. For some reason, the OS doesn't update the space on the drive.

 

[guyute]

I figured it out, if you empty the trash can it should free up the space. Thats all it took for me. I guess this is computer basics but I am new to the mac so please forgive the question.

 

[baby duck monge]

Originally posted by guyute
I figured it out, if you empty the trash can it should free up the space. Thats all it took for me. I guess this is computer basics but I am new to the mac so please forgive the question.

you can drag things to the trash all day long, but they will stay there until you empty it (safety measure, i suppose). the same thing goes for removeable media; you have to empty the trash to get rid of the items. this can be confusing, however, because if you don't empty the trash, but still eject the drive, the trashcan will appear empty (this could make you think the trash was emptied). what has actually happened is that the device has sort of its own trashcan, and remembers the location of the files when you plug the device back in (if that makes any sense).

 

[guyute]

that makes perfect sense, I appreciate your feedback.