I have several files that keep reappearing in my trash bin of Mac Air M2. This start happens after updating the macOS Sonoma. The files were originally deleted several times and reappered after few minutes.
Please provide a suitable solution.
MacBook Air, macOS 14.0
This is a Google Drive issue, not an Apple issue. After spending some significant time with Apple Support, it actually turns out that the fix, while a bit cumbersome, is quite simple.
When you delete something from your Google Drive in Finder, it takes that file and puts it in your Trash on your machine, as well as putting that file in the Trash folder in GD. When you empty the Trash on your machine, the file is permanently deleted from YOUR LOCAL DRIVE. It is NOT, however, permanently deleted from your GD Trash folder. Your GD lives in the cloud. GD is smart enough to move the file you deleted in Finder to its own Trash folder, but not smart enough to know that when you empty the Trash on your machine that is also empties the Trash folder in the cloud. This is why, after you delete the file on your machine, the file you just deleted reappears in your Trash, but if you look to the right, there's a little cloud next to it. That little cloud icon is pointing you to your GD, it's reflection of what's in the Trash folder there. Items that do not have a cloud next to them are physically in the Trash on your machine waiting to be deleted.
Put more simply, when you empty the Trash in Finder, this does not equal deleting files in your GD Trash folder.
From GD's standpoint, items deleted in GD are held in the Trash folder for 30 days, after which they are deleted forever. If you want the Trash in Finder to appear empty as well, you have to remember that it's showing you two things: The physical files you have put there from your device, as well as those that live in the Trash folder in the cloud (denoted by the little cloud icon next to the file).
THE FIX: Open up a web browser, sign in to GD, navigate to your Trash folder, and permanently delete the files that reside there. You can do this by clicking the Empty Trash button on the top right of the list of files, or do them individually by clicking the three dots on the right and then selecting "Delete Forever."
Once you do this, sync your GD by clicking on the Drive icon in your tool bar (Top right of your Mac OS desktop screen). Click the gear at the top right of the window that drops down, select "Pause Syncing" and then click the gear again and then click "Resume Syncing." Give it a few minutes and your Trash bin in Finder should now be empty. If it's not, restart your Mac and see if that forces the sync.
Remember, in this case, Trash on your Mac is receiving synced information about what's in the GD Trash folder.
Hope this helps everyone! PLEASE upvote this post if it was helpful so that search in Google will do a better job of displaying this fix for others. I will make another thread as well.
This is a Google Drive issue, not an Apple issue. After spending some significant time with Apple Support, it actually turns out that the fix, while a bit cumbersome, is quite simple.
When you delete something from your Google Drive in Finder, it takes that file and puts it in your Trash on your machine, as well as putting that file in the Trash folder in GD. When you empty the Trash on your machine, the file is permanently deleted from YOUR LOCAL DRIVE. It is NOT, however, permanently deleted from your GD Trash folder. Your GD lives in the cloud. GD is smart enough to move the file you deleted in Finder to its own Trash folder, but not smart enough to know that when you empty the Trash on your machine that is also empties the Trash folder in the cloud. This is why, after you delete the file on your machine, the file you just deleted reappears in your Trash, but if you look to the right, there's a little cloud next to it. That little cloud icon is pointing you to your GD, it's reflection of what's in the Trash folder there. Items that do not have a cloud next to them are physically in the Trash on your machine waiting to be deleted.
Put more simply, when you empty the Trash in Finder, this does not equal deleting files in your GD Trash folder.
From GD's standpoint, items deleted in GD are held in the Trash folder for 30 days, after which they are deleted forever. If you want the Trash in Finder to appear empty as well, you have to remember that it's showing you two things: The physical files you have put there from your device, as well as those that live in the Trash folder in the cloud (denoted by the little cloud icon next to the file).
THE FIX: Open up a web browser, sign in to GD, navigate to your Trash folder, and permanently delete the files that reside there. You can do this by clicking the Empty Trash button on the top right of the list of files, or do them individually by clicking the three dots on the right and then selecting "Delete Forever."
Once you do this, sync your GD by clicking on the Drive icon in your tool bar (Top right of your Mac OS desktop screen). Click the gear at the top right of the window that drops down, select "Pause Syncing" and then click the gear again and then click "Resume Syncing." Give it a few minutes and your Trash bin in Finder should now be empty. If it's not, restart your Mac and see if that forces the sync.
Remember, in this case, Trash on your Mac is receiving synced information about what's in the GD Trash folder.
Hope this helps everyone! PLEASE upvote this post if it was helpful so that search in Google will do a better job of displaying this fix for others. I will make another thread as well.
I just found the solution. In my case these files were in the Trash on Google Drive, I opened the Trash folder of Google Drive, which is here: https://drive.google.com/drive/trash, deleted the files there, and now they don't reappear anymore in my local Mac Trash bin.
Then your problem is tied to the cloud somehow. A few things to try:
Completely log out of ALL cloud services on your mac. (Log out AND shut down the apps, Google Drive, Drop Box, Box, etc.)
Log out of your wifi network completely. (Kill all internet connectivity.)
Empty your Trash on Mac again. It should not repopulate deleted items from cloud services without being connected to the internet. If it does, you may have an operating system or disk issue.
Just to be sure about your storage, run Disk Utility and check the health of your storage drives using First Aid. If you find issues there, Contact Apple Support. Their chat is usually pretty easy to get into, phones are usually a wait.
Make sure you don't have any MacOS updates to install. If you do, backup before updating as a good practice and then apply all updates.
Restart your machine. It's likely that when it boots back up your wifi and cloud services will automatically reconnect. We're cutting off communications between your Mac's file system and those services, and forcing them to reconnect and sync on a fresh session.
** If your Trash shows the items there again, then you still have files hiding somewhere that are being reported by a cloud service if you see the little cloud icon. That icon is not just Google drive, it can represent files on any other cloud platform.
If you still have items with a cloud icon next to them AND you are 100% sure that you have no items being reported from any cloud service that reports to the Trash on your Mac, I would say getting in touch with support from your cloud service providers would be the way to go, so they can help you make sure about what is and is not reporting to the MacOS Trash bin.
Just to clarify, emptying the Trash on the web version of Google Drive is only a temporary solution, but not a fix.
Open the Trash folder on the web version of Google Drive ( https://drive.google.com/drive/trash ), delete the files and your local Mac Trash will empty and stay empty.
The main problem is with the Google Drive app syncing the Google Drive Trash with your local Mac Trash. So, when you empty your local Mac Trash it re-syncs and shows them again. Hopefully Google are working to fix this as the temporary solution is poor UX at best.
Sorry for the delay - with his post I check my google gsuite drive and sure enough those three folders were there. I signed out of the google drive and back in and THEN was able to finally delete the files. I originally thought the files were from my local drives and didn't realize it was a network drive. So my connection and permissions were basically corrupted so when I'd try to empty the bin since i coudln't really delete the files they just came back. Everything is good now though. Just signed out and back in was the key!
I had to Close the Drive app on the MacBook. Empty my BIN on Drive. Empty the Bin on the Mac. Log back into the Drive app.
Files were gone.
The worst for me was that the files that were 'reappearing' were actually not even in my Drive anymore, but the Bin on my Mac kept resyncing them from nowhere?!
Guess work here, as there is very little actionable information provided
1 - If the files were on an External Drive and then moved to trash bin, they would appearing in the trash bin
2 - If the External Drive was disconnected from the computer, the trash bin would appear as Empty
3 - If the External Drive is re-connected to the computer, the files would re-appear in the trash bin
4 - So with the External Drive attached to computer and the cash bin is showing there are files in the trash bin.
5 - Do as @ chdsl has suggested, empty the trash bin
Try to clear the Google Drive Cache. See the link for more information.
https://knowledge.workspace.google.com/kb/how-to-clear-drive-for-desktop-cache-000007416
It has to be reporting from some kind of cloud service then. Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, check and make sure that you don’t still have trash files on any cloud service that you have which might be reporting to your mac trash bin. If you are still having the same issue after that, might be worth a chat/call with Apple to see if they can help you hunt it down. In my experience, Genius Bar has been helpful the couple of times I’ve had to use it for issues with my Mac. Your mileage may vary.
I’m not that skilled of a user unfortunately. For me the issue was definitely the fact that Google Drive still had trash items in the folder. If you have deleted all of those files in a browser from your GD and you are still seeing trash items with a cloud next to them in your Finder Trash bin, I’m not too sure what to do there. Something has to be telling your mac that there are items in the cloud that are in that trash folder, there’s not anything else I’m aware of that would be doing that, unless you have more than one cloud service with a trash folder that is reporting to your mac Trash bin i.e. dropbox, onedrive, etc. Potentially check those as well. Sorry I can’t be of more help!
I tried that too but mine still kept coming back.
I suspect that the retention policy of my Google drive account was keeping them there because as after 30days, they disappeared from my Mac bin.
worth pointing out that the files in my bin were showing as “in the cloud” and not “stored locally”. So my bin is now clear! I guess time really does heal.. Haha.
I'm gald you posted this! I've been trying to track down this problem for a few days - these same **** 3 folders would empty then quickly reappear. Tracked down to permissions for google drive - fixed that and problem solved - that was REALLY starting to drive me crazy!
This solved the problem for me
Thank you, it was google drive indeed. Hopefully Google fix this in a future update.
Same here. I had some files on my google drive trash. I deleted those files and problem solve.
Deleted Files Keep Coming Back to MAC bin
