True Delete or Empty Trash on Single Volume?

Howdy, all!
I've done a bit of poking around and I think I have the answer to this question (though it isn't a particularly satisfying one), but I'm hoping I'm missing something.
I take photos on an SD card. I copy the JPGs to my laptop, JPG+RAW to NAS, and delete them off the card to make room for more photos. Simple, easy, been doing it this way to the tune of tens of thousands of photos on a PC for ten years.
This past week, at the worst possible time, I ran out of space on my SD card. WHAT?!? I just cleaned it off!!! Oops... turns out when deleting files off an SD card using mac, the files are stored in a local trash bin on the SD card, invisible to the camera so that the only way to free up room while out and about is to delete good, recent photos with no backup while backed-up trash remains.
Okay, so I'll have to be dilligent about emptying the trash on the SD card. Annoying, but I can do that. Problem being that emptying the trash does so on all volumes, including my hard drive, which defeats the purpose of the trash on my hard drive where I have the space to keep a nice, lengthy list of old files in case I realize a week down the road that I actually needed that.
No problem. I don't need to use the trash for the SD card. I've been doing this almost every day for ten years without incident. Except it appears that the only way to execute a true delete (bypassing the trash can) is via command line.
In short, if I understand correctly, my choices are either:
1) Empty my trash infrequently and run out of space on the SD card.
2) Empty my trash frequently and defeat the purpose of having a trashcan on my hard drive.
3) Do all of my (almost daily) SD deletions via command line.
Is there really no other way to do this? Because having only these three options is, to be blunt, completely asinine, and I'm having a really hard time believing this to be the case. Is there seriously NO way to empty the trash on an SD without also emptying the trash on the hard drive? Is there seriously NO way to delete a file and bypass the trash can without using the command line? These are the only options?!
Apologies for my incredulity. Trying to process this one. And thanks for the help, even if it's just confirmation that this is all correct.

I format all my cards on the Camera.
If this is really driving you batty, create an Automator Service to remove all the selected items.
This will work for anything you select in the Finder. The name that you save the service as will show up in the Services submenu of the contextual menu in the Finder. Just select all the things you want to delete, right-click on them, and choose your Service from the Services menu.
Here is an example. You can leave out the confirmation if you don't want to be bothered.
The code in the Shell Script action is:
rm -Rf "$@"
You should just copy and paste that into the action.
It says to remove, forcibly, all the items passed to it, and anything in any folders or subfolders passed.

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Disk utility to prevent the recover of deleted files / empty trash securely

I just used the disk utility to prevent the recover of deleted files...
It created a recovery folder which I tried to empty trash securely...i the got a message saying there are some locked items and I responded to remove all items...
It would not let me do that the file stayed in the trash until I changed the setting and just emptied the trash the conventional way..
Can anyone tell me why that is happening???

Disk Drill, and all other file recovery apps for the Mac will recover every deleted file it can find on the drive. However, it should not have been at all possible to recover the ones you deleted with Secure Empty Trash. All files currently in the trash have every bit of their data overwritten 7 times with random data.
Were these part of what was recovered? Or just other normally deleted items?

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Hi, Bill. Welcome to the Discussions.
As baltwo noted, Mac OS X has a separate Trash, not only for every volume, but for every user on that volume. What you see in Trash is the union of all the different trashes associated with your account on every mounted volume. See my "Solving Trash Problems" FAQ for additional information.
The shareware utility Smart Trash will permit one to selectively empty the various Trashes. I've not used it, but it has received decent reviews.
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Good luck!
Dr. Smoke
Author: Troubleshooting Mac® OS X

I saw the deleted and emptied trashed photo files by accident!

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Try to drag them out of the trash to the desktop. Then see if they will play through Preview or Quicktime.

Emptying Trash in Dock empties trash on all volumes?

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bobgoldstein wrote:
A related question: Is there a way to see what is in the trash for a given external drive? It seems that the only list of files in trash is the one you get when clicking on trash in the Dock. And that list seems to include only files that were moved to trash from the internal HD.
Yes, In Terminal, use ls, so:
ls /Volumes/"name of ext HD"/.Trash
substituting using the ext HD's actual name and retaining the quotes.
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I retrieved all purchased music but not the rest.

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Using Version 3.5.1. Several after-market edit plug-ins attached. Two new problems:
Very recently, when editing, the single photo viewer mode will start showing only black (blank), or shows the photo very briefly then goes black, or shows another different photo, or a damaged-looking photo. Multiple photo viewer modes still work ok. Problem goes away upon quitting and restarting Aperture, but then shortly soonafter recurs while editing.
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First of all, make sure you have a current, working backup of your Aperture library.
Is your Aperture library on your system drive or on an external drive? If external drive, how is the library connected? And is the library referenced or managed?
Several after-market edit plug-ins attached.
Have you checked, if your plug-ins are the latest versions, and compatible with MacOS X Mavericks?
What trouble-shooting measures have you already tried? If you have not already done so, use the Aperture Library First Aid tools and repair the permissions and the database, see this page of the Aperture User Manual: Repairing and Rebuilding Your Aperture Library: Aperture 3 User Manual
Post back, with more information.

Yosemite is awful- unable to empty trash, volume options are haywire, error codes on file management, and files won't replace when moved. What are my options at this point?

Like the topic - "Yosemite is awful- unable to empty trash, volume options are haywire, error codes on file management, and files won't replace when moved. What are my options at this point?"
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What can I do now that I installed the flames of **** onto my computer?

Back up all data before proceeding.
This procedure will unlock all your user files (not system files) and reset their ownership, permissions, and access controls to the default. If you've intentionally set special values for those attributes on any of your files, they will be reverted. In that case, either stop here, or be prepared to recreate the settings if necessary. Do so only after verifying that those settings didn't cause the problem. If none of this is meaningful to you, you don't need to worry about it, but you do need to follow the instructions below.
Step 1
If you have more than one user, and the one in question is not an administrator, then go to Step 2.
Triple-click anywhere in the following line on this page to select it:
sudo find ~ $TMPDIR.. -exec chflags -h nouchg,nouappnd,noschg,nosappnd {} + -exec chown -h $UID {} + -exec chmod +rw {} + -exec chmod -h -N {} + -type d -exec chmod -h +x {} + 2>&-
Copy the selected text to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C.
Launch the built-in Terminal application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Terminal in the icon grid.
Paste into the Terminal window by pressing command-V. I've tested these instructions only with the Safari web browser. If you use another browser, you may have to press the return key after pasting.
You'll be prompted for your login password, which won't be displayed when you type it. Type carefully and then press return. You may get a one-time warning to be careful. If you don’t have a login password, you’ll need to set one before you can run the command. If you see a message that your username "is not in the sudoers file," then you're not logged in as an administrator.
The command may take several minutes to run, depending on how many files you have. Wait for a new line ending in a dollar sign ($) to appear, then quit Terminal.
Step 2 (optional)
Take this step only if you have trouble with Step 1, if you prefer not to take it, or if it doesn't solve the problem.
Start up in Recovery mode. When the OS X Utilities screen appears, select
Utilities ▹ Terminal
from the menu bar. A Terminal window will open. In that window, type this:
resetp
Press the tab key. The partial command you typed will automatically be completed to this:
resetpassword
Press return. A Reset Password window will open. You’re not going to reset a password.
Select your startup volume ("Macintosh HD," unless you gave it a different name) if not already selected.
Select your username from the menu labeled Select the user account if not already selected.
Under Reset Home Directory Permissions and ACLs, click the Reset button.
Select
 ▹ Restart
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I deleted a large file, emptied trash but recovered no space

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Try to see what hidden files or folders take up much space.
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Open a terminal and type the command, after each line, press enter:
defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles -boolean true
killall Finder
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Be careful not to delete the folder if you do not know their meaning.
The reverse is
defaults delete com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles
killall Finder
Regards,
Alex
Apple Support Professional

I deleted the photos via Finder and empty trash long time ago. The thing is, that I want to recover one event or album. The event appears in the iphoto but when open, it shows "!". Is it possible to recover the photos?

I deleted the photos via Finder and empty trash long time ago. The thing is, that I want to recover one event or album. The event appears in the iphoto but when open, it shows "!". Is it possible to recover the photos?

No. When you removed the photos via the finder you damage the library. Photos should always be removed from the library using iPhoto, never with the Finder.
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It's been too long to be able to try one of the file recovery applications. You sure to have overwritten those files with new files since them.
OT

I've deleted all my mail in iCloud and also empty trash, but iCloud mail still occupied my iCloud storage for 1.9GB. What do I do?

Dear All,
I've deleted all my mail in iCloud and also empty trash, but iCloud mail still occupied my iCloud storage for 1.9GB. What do I do?
BR.

Hi OaksterMe,
In order to completely delete emails from your devices and free up space in iCloud, you should follow the steps in this article -
iCloud: Reduce email storage space
Thanks for using Apple Support Communities.
Best,
Brett L

Hard Drive is full. Didn't empty trash bin but can't see deleted files.

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Download and run the 10.6.8 combo update http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1399

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Hey all!
I'm trying to delete files from my Mac OS X Lion system, but it fails. Well actually, nothing happends. When i hit EMPTY TRASH, the dialog box opens with a note "emptying the trash" and showing the number of files to be deleted (486 files) - but nothing happends. It just hangs there.
I did the file persmissions repair, which initally took very long to kick off showing it will take some 7 hours... I got worried there, but then completed in about 5 mins....
Any ideas whats going on?

To see what's in the trash:
Launch Terminal and copy & paste these commands:
cd ~/.Trash
Press Return
Then enter ls Press return
This will list of the contents of your trash, so you can if there's anything you need you can drag it out. If not, follow these instructions:
Go to /Applications /Utilities/Terminal and launch it.
At the prompt, copy and paste this command
sudo rm -rf ~/.Trash
Press Return.
You will be asked to enter your admin password. It will be invisible.
Enter it and press Return.
Log out and back in or restart.
Let us know.

True Delete or Empty Trash on Single Volume?

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