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Why does Trash work differently?
#2857 09/04/09 12:00 AM
Joined: Sep 2009
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We have noticed that the Trash works differently in 10.6 then in any other previous version of OS X. Previously when you had one thing in trash and you deleted it, you'd (of course) see only one thing get deleted.

But in 10.6 it is reporting that many more things are being deleted. For example, we had 5 things in our trash, and when we went to delete them it reported that over 1000 things were being deleted. With only one thing being deleted, it reports back that 21 things are being deleted. What's up with this?

Re: Why does Trash work differently?
Maxintosh #2858 09/04/09 12:30 AM
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Haven't played enough with SL myself (just got it booting on my netbook), but perhaps if you're deleting a package (installer, application, etc), it's reporting the contents within as well as the container? What kinds of files have you tried and do you see this every time?


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Re: Why does Trash work differently?
Maxintosh #2877 09/04/09 06:06 AM
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Depends on the "thing". If this is an application, although it looks like one entity, it may contain many files, as Donikatz rightly pointed out. For instance, if you update a program, it may contain numerous files. In SL, as I mentioned earlier, the option "empty trash" was removed. With that command, you just did not see how many items were deleted. In SL, there is only "secure empty trash" left, and this option is counting the number of deleted files. It is rather slow and one can see the progress and the number of files left.

Last edited by macnerd10; 09/04/09 06:06 AM.

Alex
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Re: Why does Trash work differently?
macnerd10 #2882 09/04/09 09:28 AM
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Originally Posted By: macnerd10
In SL, as I mentioned earlier, the option "empty trash" was removed. With that command, you just did not see how many items were deleted. In SL, there is only "secure empty trash" left, and this option is counting the number of deleted files. It is rather slow and one can see the progress and the number of files left.


I still have Empty Trash. perhaps it's because I did the .Trash hack and have Trash in my Sidebar as well?


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Re: Why does Trash work differently?
macnerd10 #2889 09/04/09 01:21 PM
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Originally Posted By: macnerd10
In SL, there is only "secure empty trash" left, and this option is counting the number of deleted files.

I have three Macs running Snow Leopard and all three have "Empty Trash" as well as "Secure Empty Trash". I have observed what the OP is seeing with Empty Trash but the trash contained some package files, so I assumed (I know assumptions are not smart) I was seeing the package contents being deleted file by file.


If we knew what it was we were doing, it wouldn't be called research, would it?

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Re: Why does Trash work differently?
joemikeb #2907 09/04/09 06:49 PM
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I thought it was weird but now you confirmed it. I really only had "secure empty trash". It does not bother me that much. Now, I have trashed Finder prefs and got the standard option back. Thanks, Joe!

Last edited by macnerd10; 09/04/09 06:52 PM.

Alex
3.1 GHz 13" MacBook Pro 2015, 8 GB RAM, OS 10.11.2, Office 2011, TimeWarner Cable
2.8 GHz Xeon Mac Pro 2010, 16 GB RAM, OS 10.11.2, Office 2011, LAN
Re: Why does Trash work differently?
Maxintosh #3031 09/06/09 02:55 AM
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I only delete things when I'm sure I really want to delete them. Today I went to Finder -> Preferences and checked "Empty Trash securely" so that's now the default. But since I had never even paid any attention to the "Secure Empty Trash" option until recently, it might provide a bit more drive space if there was another option to really delete everything you had ever deleted, or securely empty everything that had previously been insecurely emptied. tongue

Re: Why does Trash work differently?
Dave #3058 09/06/09 02:14 PM
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Are you perhaps referring to something like the Erase Free Space option in Disk Utility? It cannot create any more disk space, no delete or erase utility can do that, but it will overwrite all the free data blocks on your drive with zeros making it more difficult for the Police, RIAA, CIA, FBI, KGB, etc. to recover deleted data from your disk drive.

Caution: If you have a lot of free space on your HD and choose either the 7 pass or the 35 pass option be prepared for the erase to take several hours or more to complete.


If we knew what it was we were doing, it wouldn't be called research, would it?

— Albert Einstein
Re: Why does Trash work differently?
Maxintosh #3115 09/06/09 11:17 PM
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There's an existing (in Leopard) bug with Secure Empty Trash. When it counts the number of items to be deleted, it fails to start the count at zero, so you wind up with some random number being added to the count. The random number is always the same number on a given computer, but may vary from one computer to another.

You can verify this for yourself by creating a couple of large files (on the order of tens of megabytes or so) and putting them in the trash, then doing a Secure Empty Trash.

Since you create the files yourself you can be sure there are no package considerations or anything like that at play.

For example:

Code:
head -c 20000000 /dev/random >bigfile
for i in a b c d; do cp bigfile ~/.Trash/bigfile$i; done


creates a 20mB file and puts 4 copies of it in your trash. (It takes a while to create the first file, so keep it around for later tests.) Then Secure Empty Trash.

On my machine, Secure Empty Trash takes about a half-second per megabyte, so each 20mB file takes ten seconds or so to delete. Finder delays 2 or 3 seconds before putting up the dialog, which lets you still see the last 8 seconds or so of the first file. After the four real files get deleted, the remaining spurious count goes rapidly to zero as Finder hears back from the helper app (Locum) that does the actual deleting. (It's probably Locum itself that is reporting the incorrect count.)

So, it looks like you've re-discovered a Leopard bug that wasn't quashed in Snow Leopard. I guess I get to report it again. (I described it as a cosmetic bug, which probably put it on the "fix the day before hell freezes" list. Ah, what the heck, it is a cosmetic bug.)

The reason for making the file so large is to put the emptying process in slow motion. Finder doesn't put up the progress window right away, so you won't be confident you saw the initial count until you see how slowly it changes.


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