TrashEye

Mac OS 9 Trash Can Nostalgia

With my laptop’s small display, I have Dock-hiding always turned on; anyway the trash icon doesn’t show the file count and a quick Command-Option-D brings it back. Like many of you, I got used to the Trash Can on the Desktop with DragThing that I later replaced with Bin-it until the latter was also discontinued. Lately, I even tried iCollections’ Trash pane without much success. Some of you may have even know the original Mac OS 9 trash can!

However, all of these were not real-time, sometimes taking several seconds to refresh their content. If I remember correctly, Bin-it was even limited to the local Trash (i.e. the ~/.Trash folder). What’s more with my bad eyesight, I needed a big red badge for the total count (the typical Apple NSColor.red for badges), in order to not have to stare for long seconds at the icon to read its count. I am quite obsessive about not deleting something by mistake, and assume others are like me, that’s the reason for the big red badge.

Real Time Refresh

What’s remarkable about TrashEye is its real-time refresh rate. It also has practically zero impact on both CPU and memory.

Companion Widget

TrashEye now has a BetterTouchTool Touch Bar companion trash can widget that, beyond showing the number of trashed items, allows you to open the local trash bin by touching the widget’s icon.

Companion Widget

Download the widget (installation instructions in the zip file)

Features

  • Sliding the switch to On in the Preferences window, displays a Trash icon in the bottom left corner of your Desktop
  • A single click (left-click) on TrashEye’s icon opens the Bin folder
  • Right-clicking on the Trash Can opens a contextual menu
  • To reposition the Trash on your Desktop click the Reposition Trash menu item. This action will reveal its background view, allowing you to grab it and move it to your liking
  • “Force Empty Trash” deletes locked files. It auto-detects if Touch ID is enabled for sudo and adapts its strategy accordingly (see below for a Howto):

    How to enable Touch ID for sudo on MacBook Pro

    Can Touch ID for the Mac Touch Bar authenticate sudo users and admin privileges?

  • Dragging items on to TrashEye’s Desktop icon adds them to the trash
  • Dragging installer volumes to TrashEye’s Desktop icon ejects them

Apps

Right-click on video to watch it in Full Screen or resizable Picture-in-Picture