Viewing files in Trash on External Hard Drive

[sevenseconds]

Trying to view files in the trash on an external hard drive.

I keep my Music Library on a new external HDD formatted with APFS. Some times, when I delete a track from Music, I get the option to "Move item to Trash" or "Keep File." Other times, I delete the track, it gets removed from Music but no notification appears.

In BOTH scenarios, the files never appear in my Trash.

I know these files are buried in my external hard drive somewhere but I want to be able to view them to recover a few.

I have "Ignore Ownership on this Volume" checked on the external hard drive. When I view hidden files on the external drive in Finder, the .Trashes folder is visible but when I try to open it, it says I don't have permission to do so.

Any ideas on how to VIEW files in the trash here? I see a lot of solutions for forcibly emptying the trash but I want to VIEW the trash, not merely empty it.

 

[svenmany]

I have a bunch of external drives. When I open the trash in Finder I see a consolidation of all the different trashes. In Pathfinder (a Finder replacement) there is a trashcan that offers you to see the trash of each volume separately.

I don't know why you're not seeing the trash. Could it be it's not the disk trash that the item is placed in? In 1Password, for example, there is the menu choice "Move to Trash", but that doesn't use the disk's trash; it has its own folder called "Trash".

 

[sevenseconds]

Thanks for the ideas. I don’t have Pathfinder but maybe I should get it. Would love to be able to see an external drive trash sometimes.

Do you think the Music app has its own trash somewhere? I looked inside my external drive’s Media folder and the only things hidden are iTunes and Media preference plists. Also looked in the Music library’s location in my user Music folder and no hidden files there.

I looked inside the boot drive Trash and there’s nothing there as well.

 

[svenmany]

Do you think the Music app has its own trash somewhere? I looked inside my external drive’s Media folder and the only things hidden are iTunes and Media preference plists. Also looked in the Music library’s location in my user Music folder and no hidden files there.

Maybe bad news... I added a wav file to iTunes to have something to delete. I deleted it and it ended up in my Trash. My library is on my main drive, so it's not a complete test of what you do.

I did get this pop-up.

Sorry that my idea didn't pan out.

I don’t have Pathfinder but maybe I should get it. Would love to be able to see an external drive trash sometimes.

I use it all the time. But beware; it is a bit buggy. But for me, the benefits outweigh the bugs.

I looked inside the boot drive Trash and there’s nothing there as well.

If you mean that you opened the trash using the trashcan on the dock, that should show the trash from all the mounted volumes (internal drive and external drives).

---

You said you were trying to list the contents of the hidden trash folders directly and couldn't. That could be a challenging exercise. I was debating whether to include the following since it's technical. I only mention it in case someone else reading this thread can shed some light on what the issues are with respect to investigating the contents of a trash folder.

It's not ownership of the folder that is limiting it (makes sense because you have owners off). I also can't open the trash as a normal folder in Finder, or list its contents at the command line. When I attempt to list the contents in Terminal, I see the following in the logs:

{ID: com.apple.sandboxd, PID[188], auid: 0, euid: 0, binary path: '/usr/libexec/sandboxd'} attempted to call TCCAccessRequest without the com.apple.private.tcc.manager.check-by-audit-token entitlement

If I try the same using iTerm (another program that's like Terminal), I get

Sandbox: ls(1918) System Policy: deny(1) file-read-data /Volumes/MiscSan/.Trashes

Perhaps someone else can chime in how to work around that. I think it relates to the application you're trying to use and its own permissions to access the .Trashes folder.

 

[||\||]

Trying to view files in the trash on an external hard drive.

I keep my Music Library on a new external HDD formatted with APFS. Some times, when I delete a track from Music, I get the option to "Move item to Trash" or "Keep File." Other times, I delete the track, it gets removed from Music but no notification appears.

In BOTH scenarios, the files never appear in my Trash.

I know these files are buried in my external hard drive somewhere but I want to be able to view them to recover a few.

I have "Ignore Ownership on this Volume" checked on the external hard drive. When I view hidden files on the external drive in Finder, the .Trashes folder is visible but when I try to open it, it says I don't have permission to do so.

Any ideas on how to VIEW files in the trash here? I see a lot of solutions for forcibly emptying the trash but I want to VIEW the trash, not merely empty it.
View attachment 1684552

Can you access the .Trashes folder over a network?

 

[svenmany]

Can you access the .Trashes folder over a network?

Brilliant. Just to make sure I understand the suggestion: I went to another machine X and mounted the external drive as a share of the machine in question. Then I tried to access that external drive's trash from machine X.

I just tested that and I still couldn't. I get the same Sandbox related error.

 

[svenmany]

I also tried connecting from a Windows machine. I just got a basic permission denied error.

@sevenseconds, it makes sense for you to try connecting over the network as well. I could have some different issue - you never know.