USB Drives and Trash

Question

Level 3

535 points

USB Drives and Trash

I do not want to have things deleted from USB drives go to the trash. Is there a way to tell finder not to use trash with removable drives? Or better yet, just to say only use it with the main drive?

MacBooks(4,1 & 5,1), Mac OS X (10.5.5), TVs(2) iPod touch(2G)

Posted on Nov 19, 2008 2:46 PM

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Answer 1

baltwo

Level 9

62,386 points

Nov 19, 2008 2:56 PM in response to user1724

Use the Terminal commands rm and rmdir.

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Answer 2

fireflyer

Level 3

573 points

Nov 19, 2008 4:47 PM in response to user1724

I am not sure, but when you trash files from a USB device (like a thumbdrive) even though they appear in the Trash Can, they are not actually moved to your system's trash - they are in a .Trashes folder on the USB device itself.
Try this test - put something from your USB device in the trash, but don't dump the trash. You should be able to see it in the Trash can's directory. Now remove the device (without dumping the trash) and check the Trash can again. The files are gone. Plug it back in and they'll again be in the trash can. (This is at least the case for a Thumbdrive. I haven't tested it with a USB external drive, yet).
To me, this shows the Trash lives on the USB device. So if you are worried that using the Trash will move files to the host machine this seems to show that the actual file is not moved to the host's trash. (Does anyone know for sure whether this is true?)

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Answer 3

baltwo

Level 9

62,386 points

Nov 19, 2008 4:56 PM in response to fireflyer

You're correct. There's a trash folder associated with each mounted volume and with each user account that someone ever logged into.

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Answer 4

fireflyer

Level 3

573 points

Nov 19, 2008 5:01 PM in response to baltwo

Thanks for the info.

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Answer 5

user1724 Author

Level 3

535 points

Nov 19, 2008 5:49 PM in response to fireflyer

Yes, there is a .trashes on every drive. That is exactly why I am asking this. I don't want a trash on my flash drives. It is quite pointless if you have a portable flash drive you use to move things around between location and machines. It should either be on the drive, or deleted.

I can see why in some cases you might want trash on your USB drive. And, cases when you would not.

That is my question . . . does anyone know a way to disable the trash logic for a USB drive so it just deletes the files.

So, back to the original post . . . does anyone know if that is possible? I do not see any options for this.

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Answer 6

baltwo

Level 9

62,386 points

Nov 19, 2008 5:55 PM in response to user1724

If you want to use it with a Mac, then the answer, AFAIK, is no, unless there's some way to change the underlying OS X base structure that I'm not aware of. As I noted earlier, the Terminal commands will delete items, bypassing the trash.

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Answer 7

jsd2

Level 5

6,245 points

Nov 19, 2008 6:26 PM in response to user1724

You can't permanently delete /.Trashes, but there is a trick is to replace the .Trashes folder with a .Trashes file, such that Finder can no longer put things in it. See [this article|http://www.macgeekery.com/gspot/2007-03/gettingimmediate_deletefunctionality].

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Answer 8

fireflyer

Level 3

573 points

Nov 19, 2008 7:10 PM in response to jsd2

Very interesting article, jsd2. That is a great trick to avoid leaving things in trash that might be recovered if you forget to empty the trash. Do you know whether "Secure Empty Trash..." works if you eliminate the .Trashes folder?

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Answer 9

jsd2

Level 5

6,245 points

Nov 19, 2008 7:23 PM in response to fireflyer

I haven't actually tried this trick. I don't see how you could use Secure Empty Trash, since there would be no way to identify the specific files you wanted to overwrite, but you could instead use Disk Utility's Erase Free Space from time to time. If the USB drive is small, it shouldn't take too long.

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