Automate trash delete on USB drive

I would like to create an Automator service (or anything else that I can access by ctrl-clicking in Finder) to delete all trash contents from a USB drive.
Can anyone advise me on how to achieve this? I've found Terminal instructions but you have to navigate to the right place and I'd really like to stay in the GUI for this one.
(And while we're at it, what's a good resource to learn basic Unix commands for the Mac?)
Thanks in advance!

LingoJango wrote:
(And while we're at it, what's a good resource to learn basic Unix commands for the Mac?)
You can start here

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How can i create a Trash for external USB Drives ?

Hello,
how can i create a Trash for external USB Drives or my TimeCapsule ?
Thanks.

You do not need to create trash cans for individual drives. The trash can on the desktop holds deleted files from all mounted drives.
TimeCapsule manages its own space. If it fills up it will delete older backps to make space for newer ones.

Trash functionality with USB drives

Rather than join the AppleCare support community forum, what I actually wished to do was to send an email to apple with some suggestions on how to improve OS X Lion. That was, surprisingly, impossible to do. So I have wound up here.
I find it incredible that when you delete files from a USB drive they go into a trash folder that is hidden on the USB drive, however, the only way to empty the trash on the USB drive is to empty both your computer's trash AND the USB drive's trash.
Isn't that ridiculous???

Riaz from Australia wrote:
Rather than join the AppleCare support community forum, what I actually wished to do was to send an email to apple with some suggestions on how to improve OS X Lion. That was, surprisingly, impossible to do. So I have wound up here.
Too late! You're in the community now!
Start answering questions, we will tell you when you can stop and when you cannot.
I guess you didn't read the agreement you signed carefully.

Time machine does not back up automatically to an external usb drive

When I use Time machine to back up to an external usb hd, (Western Digital with I have to use the "backup now" command. When I "Enter Time Machine" all I see is the last backup. When I look on the drive, all the backups are listed in a "Backups.backupb" directory conatained in a Sparsebundle directory. Is there some way to set it up so it backs up automatically and show all my backups?

Hi G:
By system clock, I meant the one that displays the time in the menu bar. I think I made up some new terminology!
Needless to say, I have not seen a situation like yours before.
Hopefully one of my more technical virtual colleagues will have more suggestions. I am sorry I have not been more helpful. I do not want to suggest things that will take your time that "might" work.
Barry

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?

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?)

Windows Won't Boot With USB Drives Attached

I just installed Windows 7 on my Mac mini but it won't boot into Windows automatically if there are USB drives attached. I have to hold down the option key at boot time and select the Windows partition manually for it to boot, unless I remove the USB drives first, then it will boot into Windows on its own. Does anyone know how to fix this annoying problem?

Sounds like your mini is set to boot order: boot from USB first.
On a PC you could go into BIOS and change boot order and enable/disable USB booting.
Not sure why or what is on the USB bus, type of drive and device that could also make a difference (and not be universal to the Mini)

Hi there, my iMac has automatically been deleting files from my thumb drive when I try to open them. The lost files aren'tin the trash or anywhere else I can think of. Any ideas?

Hi there, my iMac has automatically been deleting files from my thumb drive when I try to open them. The lost files aren'tin the trash or anywhere else I can think of. Any ideas?

If one drive works and the other doesn't that points the finger at the errant drive. They are cheap, replace it. To check formatting right click it in Finder and choose Get Info and look for Format type. Finally do you eject it when removing it or do you just pull it out of the USB connection?

Cannot Delete Folders from USB drive connected to Airport Extreme

When I try to delete files from the usb drive connected to my airport I get "cannot remove folder, the directory is not empty.
This only happens for some of the folders that are empty. No problem deleting any files whether they were created before or after I setup the airport. The folders that won't delete were created after I hooked up the drive to the airport however, I can make new folders and delete them no problem now. The ones that don't delete say "read only" in the properties. when I uncheck read only it reverts back to read only automatically.
Any ideas what might be causing this?

Tried what you suggested last night - no change. What is odd, though, is that I can create a new folder on the external USB HDD (through the Hub) and copy a file into it. While I can then close Finder, re-open and see the Folder and file I copied, I still can't see all the data that is currently stored on the drive...Is this a delete and re-copy scenario?
Thanks!

[Solved] Delete files from usb drive connected to wireless router

Hello,
I have a home network with Samba for file sharing.
I have a Netgear router with a Western Digital 2TB external drive attached to the router.
I installed Samba according to the arch wiki and everything works fine but I cannot delete or access some files from the shared USB drive.
I access the file as follows:
$ cd /mnt/smbnet/WORKGROUP/READYSHARE/USB_Storage/
Here are the permissions:
$ ls -l /mnt/smbnet
total 0
drwxrwxrwx 2 root root 0 Dec 31 1969 DEANSNETWORK
drwxrwxrwx 2 root root 0 Dec 31 1969 MYGROUP
drwxrwxrwx 2 root root 0 Dec 31 1969 WORKGROUP
$ ls -l /mnt/smbnet/WORKGROUP/
total 0
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 13 Dec 31 1969 READYSHARE -> ../READYSHARE
$ ls -l /mnt/smbnet/WORKGROUP/READYSHARE/
total 0
drwxrwxrwx 2 root root 0 Dec 31 1969 USB_Storage
$ ls -l /mnt/smbnet/WORKGROUP/READYSHARE/USB_Storage/
total 0
drwxr-xr-x 2 edgar users 0 Jul 22 21:04 BACKUPS
drwxr-xr-x 2 edgar users 0 Jul 15 10:43 WD
$ ls -l /mnt/smbnet/WORKGROUP/READYSHARE/USB_Storage/BACKUPS/
total 0
drwxr-xr-x 2 edgar users 0 Jul 11 22:36 Laurie_Laptop
drwxr-xr-x 2 edgar users 0 Jul 22 21:04 TRASH
drwxr-xr-x 2 edgar users 0 Jul 12 09:50 Work_Laptop
If I try to delete the BACKUPS directory, I get errors:
$ rm -r BACKUPS/
rm: cannot remove ‘BACKUPS/Laurie_Laptop’: Permission denied
rm: cannot remove ‘BACKUPS/TRASH/Documents/C++Prog/2541/BibleTriviaTest’: Permission denied
rm: cannot remove ‘BACKUPS/TRASH/Documents/C++Prog/2541/HouseTest’: Permission denied
rm: cannot remove ‘BACKUPS/TRASH/Documents/C++Prog/Bitmanip’: Directory not empty
rm: cannot remove ‘BACKUPS/TRASH/Documents/C++Prog/CurrentMusicPrograms/Musc110’: Directory not empty
etc...
Attempting to change the mode doesn't work:
$ chmod 777 BACKUPS/
[edgar@arch USB_Storage]$ ls -l
total 0
drwxr-xr-x 2 edgar users 0 Jul 22 21:04 BACKUPS
drwxr-xr-x 2 edgar users 0 Jul 15 10:43 WD
Thanks for any help you can provide.
Last edited by mrgar (2014-07-24 02:11:56)

Here is the output:
$ mount | grep /mnt
smbnetfs on /mnt/smbnet type fuse.smbnetfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,user_id=1000,group_id=100)
The USB drive is Western Digital My Book 2 TB drive attached as a NAS to the router that shares it. I installed Samba on the arch machine so I can access and backup various home computers onto the NAS.
Here is some info I just found on the Western Digital Support site:
The Western Digital units mentioned above use a proprietary file system and cannot be reformatted as FAT32, NTFS, or a Mac File System.
The file system on the WD My Cloud EX2, WD My Cloud EX4, WD My Cloud, WD My Book Live, WD My Book Live Duo, WD ShareSpace, WD ShareSpace, WD TV Live Hub, My Net N900 Central, WD My Book World Edition, WD NetCenter hard drives support access from Windows, Mac and most Linux based computer systems through a SAMBA network sharing connection.
I thought I would mention that I can access the NAS and write, read and execute from the drive.
$ cd /mnt/smbnet/WORKGROUP/READYSHARE/USB_Storage/
[edgar@arch USB_Storage]$ mkdir Test
[edgar@arch USB_Storage]$ ls
BACKUPS Test WD
[edgar@arch USB_Storage]$ cd Test
[edgar@arch Test]$ vim testfile.txt
[edgar@arch Test]$ ls -l
total 1
-rwxr--r-- 1 edgar users 16 Jul 23 07:47 testfile.txt
[edgar@arch Test]$ cat testfile.txt
This is a test.
[edgar@arch Test]$ rm testfile.txt
[edgar@arch Test]$ cd ..
[edgar@arch USB_Storage]$ rm -r Test/
[edgar@arch USB_Storage]$ ls
BACKUPS WD
However I want to copy large files with cp -ruv from my arch machine to the NAS.
This is where the trouble lies. Thanks for your help.

USB drive - Can't delete strange files

I use a Toshiba 8GB USB drive. I had been using it for my PC. When I recently bought my first Apple (MacBook Pro), I used this USB drive to transfer some of the files between my mac & pc. But now some of the folders on this drive have strange names e.g. " µÑ?:π\-.>é⌐*". When I try to delete these files or folders containing these files, I get an error saying : "cannot read from source file or disk".
Same thing happened with one of the files in the "Trashes" folder on the USB drive and I can't empty it now.
I have a few questions:
1) Do you know why I got these files in the first place?
2) Do I need them and therefore just not worry about them?
3) Can I delete them and if yes, how?
Thanks,
Mukul

your best bet is to get any data off the drive that you want to save and copy it to a folder on your desktop, etc.
Then use disk utility and format the disk as fat 32, and user the erase option to zero out the drive.
once that is done, move your data back and enjoy.

Can't delete folder in USB drive..

Hello,
I copied a locked folder that contain my PGP keys to a USB drive that is connected to my Airport and has 2 partitions. one for TM and one things I don't want to carry on my laptop.
Rearranging the setup, I copied a locked folder from my HD to the USB drive. now trying to delete it, trash gives the message "The operation cannot be completed because you do not have sufficient privileges for some of the items" looking at the folders info. it shows the access like this: under name there are 2 (unknown) with read & write access and there is one named everyone also with read & write access.
Macbook 13'3 , 2.16 pentium , 2G's RAM Mac OS-X ver 10.5.5
Any ideas?
Thanks
Oscar 

OzZkar65 wrote:
Hello,
I copied a locked folder that contain my PGP keys to a USB drive that is connected to my Airport and has 2 partitions. one for TM and one things I don't want to carry on my laptop.
Rearranging the setup, I copied a locked folder from my HD to the USB drive. now trying to delete it, trash gives the message "The operation cannot be completed because you do not have sufficient privileges for some of the items" looking at the folders info. it shows the access like this: under name there are 2 (unknown) with read & write access and there is one named everyone also with read & write access.
Macbook 13'3 , 2.16 pentium , 2G's RAM Mac OS-X ver 10.5.5
Any ideas?
Thanks
Oscar 
How did you trash it? Did you trash it directly from the USB drive or did you first move it onto your internal HD?

Cannot emtpy trash containing a file from FAT32 USB drive

Hi
I had copied a .app file from another mac over a network to my FAT32 USB drive. I then deleted the file from the USB drive per normal it went to trash. The problem is that i cannot empty this one file out of trash.
What iv tried thus far:
- I tried restarting.
- I tried dragging it back onto the USB and deleting again.
- I tried dragging it onto my desktop, upon which it asked for my system password, and then deleting again.
- I tried putting it back on the USB drive, restarting in windows XP, and tried deleting in windows.
None of the above has worked. The file is Zero KB. Windows gave an error with something about the file is not completed...?
Thanks in advance
cheers

Thanks but this did not work either. Below i have pasted the result form the terminal screen:
rm: random.app/Contents/Resources/BrushStrokes_TextOnly.Label.pox/Contents/Material /A317E08E-39E8-11D9-8C94-000A95C37E10.: No such file or directory
rm: random.app/Contents/Resources/BrushStrokes_TextOnly.Label.pox/Contents/Material : Directory not empty
rm: random.app/Contents/Resources/BrushStrokes_TextOnly.Label.pox/Contents: Directory not empty
rm: random.app/Contents/Resources/BrushStrokes_TextOnly.Label.pox: Directory not empty
rm: random.app/Contents/Resources/Picture-in-Picture_TextOnly.Label.pox/Contents/Ma terial/AFEBFBC8-39E8-11D9-8C94-000A95C37E10.: No such file or directory
rm: random.app/Contents/Resources/Picture-in-Picture_TextOnly.Label.pox/Contents/Ma terial: Directory not empty
rm: random.app/Contents/Resources/Picture-in-Picture_TextOnly.Label.pox/Contents: Directory not empty
rm: random.app/Contents/Resources/Picture-in-Picture_TextOnly.Label.pox: Directory not empty
rm: random.app/Contents/Resources/Postcard_TextOnly.Label.pox/Contents/.de0490.002/ BBB1382E-39E8-11D9-8C94-000A95C37E10.: No such file or directory
rm: random.app/Contents/Resources/Postcard_TextOnly.Label.pox/Contents/.de0490.002: Directory not empty
rm: random.app/Contents/Resources/Postcard_TextOnly.Label.pox/Contents: Directory not empty
rm: random.app/Contents/Resources/Postcard_TextOnly.Label.pox: Directory not empty
rm: random.app/Contents/Resources: Directory not empty
rm: random.app/Contents: Directory not empty
rm: random.app: Directory not empty

ITunes on USB drive issue with deleting songs

Hi!
I have my iTunes library on an external USB Drive but I have a big problem when I try to remove songs from iTunes...
When removing songs from iTunes I select the "move to trash" option. The songs appear in my trash but are not deleted from my usb drive... It seems that it simply copies them to the trash but if I browse through the "iTunes Media" folder on the drive, I still find all the songs.
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Thanks!!!

Have you emptied the trash?

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Does anyone know why my Iphone will not connect to my computer all of a sudden? I backed it up lastnight. Now it wont even register with my computer.... It says Apple Mobile Device USB driver doesnt work all of a sudden???? i tryed deleting and reloading and nothing is working!!! someone please help =)

Have you done:
Removing and Reinstalling iTunes, QuickTime, and other software components for Windows XP
or
Removing and reinstalling iTunes, QuickTime, and other software components for Windows Vista or Windows 7
What results do you get when you run this:
iTunes for Windows: Device Sync Tests
Do both the Home button and Power button work OK normally?

Automatically open USB Drive (connected to Airport Extreme) in Finder

I have a 1TB USB drive connected to my Airport Extreme (version 7.6.3).
File sharing is enabled in the Airport-configuration program.
But I liked to have this USB drive displayed (automatically) on the desktop. Same as is happening with the harddisk.
So I don't have to manually open the networ, Airport Extreme station and the USB drive (see picture below).
Does anyone have a suggestion ?
Thanks in advance.

Thanks Bob.
I noticed that the USB drive is displayed with a different icon. Below the icon if I use the automatic connection as you have suggested.
And if I connect it manually I get the belowlisted icon.
What is the difference between those ?
And is there a difference in performance or capabilities ?
Thanks in advance.

Automate trash delete on USB drive

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