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11-20-2009, 09:08 AM
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#1
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LQ Newbie
Registered: Jan 2009
Posts: 20
Rep:
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Deleted files question
I recently reformatted my external to fat32 from ntfs and backed up the contents of it onto my laptop's hard drive (around 130 GB). After re-formatting I moved the files back to my external and deleted the files off my laptop but it still says I only have about 33 GB of free space when I had around 160 GB or free space before backing up my external's data.
I'm using Ubuntu 9.10, is there any "recycle bin" type of thing which I can empty?
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11-20-2009, 09:15 AM
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#2
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Senior Member
Registered: Feb 2004
Location: Somerset, England
Distribution: Slackware 10.2, Slackware 10.0, Ubuntu 9.10
Posts: 1,938
Rep:
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Yes. Have a look in .Trash (hidden folder, hence the .)
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11-20-2009, 09:41 AM
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#3
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LQ Newbie
Registered: Jan 2009
Posts: 20
Original Poster
Rep:
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That folder isn't present in my home directory. (I'm using Ubuntu 9.10)
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11-20-2009, 09:45 AM
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#4
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Senior Member
Registered: Jun 2008
Posts: 1,821
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Hidden...
Have you enabled Hidden Files? Look in your File manage(mine is Dolphin) under File for Show Hidden files.
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11-20-2009, 09:47 AM
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#5
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Senior Member
Registered: Feb 2004
Location: Somerset, England
Distribution: Slackware 10.2, Slackware 10.0, Ubuntu 9.10
Posts: 1,938
Rep:
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Quote:
Originally Posted by schulte3
That folder isn't present in my home directory. (I'm using Ubuntu 9.10)
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So am I and I've got one, though I'm not at home right now so I can't check the details.
It's definitely not there if you do
?
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11-20-2009, 10:28 AM
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#6
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LQ Newbie
Registered: Jan 2009
Posts: 20
Original Poster
Rep:
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Yeah, ls -a doesn't show it.
When I right click on my filesystem and check its properties it says there is only 44.7 GB of files with 34 GB of free space even though it's a 220 GB partition.
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11-20-2009, 11:08 AM
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#7
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Senior Member
Registered: Dec 2008
Location: root
Distribution: Slackware & BSD
Posts: 1,669
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schulte3,
Here is the philosophy behind:
When we delete (normal remove) the file goes or is moved to the trash (recycle bin) it is not yet destroyed, therefore the disk space is not freed.
To regain the space you must completely delete the file. Under Linux, usually it is enough to do any of the following:
a) By Terminal: cd to /home/username. If 'ls -a' does not show the 'Trash' folder it is because the system holds it inside the '.local' (dot, local) folder. So you must issue command: 'cd ./.local' (note my two dots) then issue again 'ls -a', if 'Trash' is not listed there should be a folder named 'share'; cd into that, 'cd ./share' (only one dot), 'ls -a' again. This time 'Trash' folder should be there. If you wanted to delete completely its contents (it will refuse deletion of some files owned by separate username) then you must first own everything inside. Do this:
schulte3@host--$ chown schulte3:schulte3 -R ./Trash [assuming 'schulte3' is your username] Then you can now issue removal of files.
schulte3@host--$ rm -fR ./Trash/* [or if you are inside Trash folder, do this--]
schulte3@host ~/.local/share/Trash --$ rm -fR *
b) By Dolphin (File Manager): Goto View, set 'Show Hidden Files' On, then browse into the Trash folder as described above, right click and Delete. Again if permissions complain you will need to 'chown' everything first, for this purpose you can do as described above by opening a terminal in the folder.
Note: If you have deleted it running as 'root' your home folder should be at /root, there you can execute the same procedure.
In some distros there is a universal 'Trash' folder listed in the root (/) directory, try examine your root directory: 'ls -a /' see if you find one.
Check back how you fared.
Hope it helps.
Good luck.
Last edited by malekmustaq; 11-20-2009 at 11:09 AM.
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11-20-2009, 11:44 AM
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#8
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Member
Registered: Sep 2005
Location: Boynton Beach, FL
Distribution: Slackware
Posts: 821
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If nothing else makes sense you might also want to check the Linux file system for errors. If you recently had any problems causing a sudden reboot then you might have some orphaned files or free space that aren't being included in the available / allocated space. I'm assuming that your free space problem is on the Linux file system and not the external drive. You didn't say exactly.
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11-20-2009, 12:23 PM
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#9
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LQ Newbie
Registered: Jan 2009
Posts: 20
Original Poster
Rep:
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Thank you malekmustaq, it was in my .local/share directory.
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11-20-2009, 12:24 PM
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#10
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Senior Member
Registered: Feb 2004
Location: Somerset, England
Distribution: Slackware 10.2, Slackware 10.0, Ubuntu 9.10
Posts: 1,938
Rep:
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Ah, I'm home now and what malekmustag said is right, your trash folder is in:
.local/share/Trash/
under your home folder.
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