Shared trash between two computers

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Level 1

8 points

Shared trash between two computers

My company has a MacBook that used to be mine when I worked at another office, it was signed into my apple ID and my own login. I transferred to another office and a colleague was given my old MacBook. The old computer has a new login for her, a new Apple ID, and she is the admin on that computer.

The old computer has files in the trash that my colleague didn't recognize. They are items I had put in my trash earlier that day. It's been a year that she's had this computer, and we just started to notice this. We are not on a shared work server. Is it a virus? Or does this usually happen to computers?

MacBook Pro, OS X El Capitan (10.11.6)

Posted on Aug 15, 2016 12:19 PM

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Answer 1

Aug 15, 2016 1:04 PM in response to HJMarketing

From your description it sounds like your colleague is using the same OS X user account that you were using, but she is signed into her Apple ID account. She can check this by going to  > System Preferences > Users & Groups. The name of the current user will be shown in the left hand pane underneath 'Current User'. This might help to figure out what is going on.

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Answer 2

HJMarketing Author

Level 1

8 points

Aug 15, 2016 2:35 PM in response to Steve Graff

Nope

I am under "Other users" but she is the "Current user" and "Admin" bummer

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Answer 3

Aug 15, 2016 6:37 PM in response to HJMarketing

The Trash is a complex illusion, intended to be simple for you, that can get downright weird when File Sharing and multiple drives are involved.

What you see as "the Trash" is actually the union of all Trashes on all mounted Volumes and all Shared Volumes. The illusion is less than perfect. So if you eject a Volume, choose Empty Trash, then do a restart or remount the missing Volume, the items from that Volume's Trash would seem to "grow back".

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