Tech Tip: Taking Out the .trashes
It happened to me once. I was updating my portable DJ library on my thumb drive with some shiny, new tracks when I got hit with a confusing dialog box:
“Drive is full.”
PROBLEM: My flash drive says it’s full, but I KNOW it’s not!
I knew I didn’t have 32 GB of music on my drive – I only walk around with about 16 GB or so. The iTunes data, Serato data, Traktor data and Rekordbox data (I like to have my bases covered) don’t add up to much of anything, so what’s with the error?
How do I fix it?
Fortunately the fix was stupidly easy and took about 30 seconds.
SOLUTION: EMPTY YOUR .TRASHES
When you delete something from your thumb drive, it isn’t actually deleted. Like your main hard disk, it is moved to the drive’s trash bin. The trash bin (“.Trashes”) is a hidden folder on your thumb drive, so you can’t see it when you’re browsing your files. The reason your drive reads as more full than it seems is because when you delete items from your flash drive, they are not actually deleted – they are moved to this hidden “.Trashes” folder.
And it never empties itself. You have to do that yourself. And you can do it in less than a minute by following the steps below:
STEP-BY-STEP:
- If your thumb drive is currently connected, eject and disconnect it.
- Empty your trash bin
- Reconnect your thumb drive. Your computer’s trash bin will repopulate with all the items in the drive’s hidden .Trashes folder.
- Empty your trash bin again to permanently delete the hidden items eating up your thumb drive space
Easy peasy. So thumb drives are greedy little hoarders that steal your garbage and hide it away where you can’t see it, and if you want a clean drive, you have to clean it out yourself.
Good to know. Enjoy the free drive space!
-Chris Lazaga
AudioMunk
