"Recovered files"

[DeadSirius]

Often I'll find these in my Trash after I restart, with no explanation as to what I'm supposed to do with them. Since the OS put them there, I'm assuming they're safe to delete. But what else would I do with them?

 

[EricNau]

They're just temporary files - you can delete them.

 

[DeadSirius]

That's somewhat intuitive, yet why doesn't the system just delete them on its own? What other use would I have for them that it chooses to make them available to remove from the Trash?

 

[Plymouthbreezer]

That's somewhat intuitive, yet why doesn't the system just delete them on its own? What other use would I have for them that it chooses to make them available to remove from the Trash?

Sometimes, after a crash, data could be manually recovered from them.

But otherwise, just delete 'em.

 

[Mitthrawnuruodo]

A folder called Recovered Files appears in my Trash

One or more Recovered Files folder may appear in your Trash after restarting your computer. The recovered files are temporary files used by Mac OS X applications. Usually temporary files are deleted by an application when it no longer needs them. If an application quits unexpectedly, the temporary files may not get deleted by the application. When you restart your computer, Mac OS X moves these temporary files to the Trash.

You can retrieve useful files by dragging them out of the Trash. In most cases, however, the temporary files are not important and it is safe to empty your Trash. Check with the manufacturer of the application if you are not sure.

[Link to the online version of the same file that appears in Mac Help]

This question has also been asked and answered a number of times here at the forums.