Trash preferences?

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Level 1

89 points

Trash preferences?

Previously, when I deleted something, it would then go to the trash.

Now, OS X offers to instantly delete the file instead of sending it to the trash. What did I do, how do I change it back?

Mac mini, Mac OS X (10.6.3)

Posted on Jul 4, 2010 12:07 PM

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Answer 1

Best reply

Niel

Level 10

726,845 points

Jul 4, 2010 12:11 PM in response to Dave Dahle

Click on the item in the Finder's sidebar with the house icon and verify that you are able to write to this folder in the Ownership & Permissions section of the Get Info window, and that it isn't locked; if it is already set this way and you get that error, open the Terminal in the /Applications/Utilities/ folder and run the following:

mkdir ~/.Trash

If you get a message stating that the folder exists, run the following:

sudo chown $UID ~/.Trash
chmod u+rwx ~/.Trash

The first command in the second set will prompt you for your administrator password; nothing will appear in the Terminal window while it is being typed. In either case, click on the Finder icon in the Dock with the Control and Option keys pressed, and relaunch it.

(52559)

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Answer 2

Dave Dahle Author

Level 1

89 points

Jul 4, 2010 12:20 PM in response to Niel

Perfect!

The Terminal commands did it. Seems some weirdness in this machine - have had some disk verification errors the last few months.

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Answer 3

Jul 8, 2010 6:26 PM in response to Dave Dahle

I too had the problem, and following the instructions found in this forum, thought I had it fixed.

Not so! It has reappeared as of today. Quite a nuisance.

I have not figured out just why it began or why it reappeared. I too have recently installed the CS5 Master Collection (last month) although I don't know if that was when the trouble with Trash first began. I do know I did run both InDesign and Photoshop after I fixed the problem on Monday so perhaps something CS5 is doing is causing the problem to reappear.

I'm going to fix it again and see if I can document its reappearance this time.

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Answer 4

Jul 8, 2010 8:16 PM in response to Dave Dahle

After installing the Combo OS 10.6.4 Update, I had the same problem of items moved to trash having to be deleted immediately or canceled.

I just reran the Combo 10.6.4 Update and the trash problem has been corrected. I'll see if this correction "sticks".

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Answer 5

Massken

Level 1

14 points

Oct 2, 2010 3:47 PM in response to Niel

Niel,

I'm not versed in Unix commands. Can you confirm where the spaces are in the the three commands in your July 4, 2010 post re: Trash preferences? Thanks.

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Answer 6

dcelento

Level 1

5 points

Dec 11, 2010 10:18 AM in response to Massken

Sadly, this question is definitely not "answered". I tried all of the above and I also get the "immediate delete" warning. Worse, I can not delete some items, even though Info stated that I only had Read permissions, which I changed to Read/Write permissions. Still can't delete the desired file.

Any insights. This, too, did not happen several months ago, prior to several updates (not sure when this started, unfortunately).

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