Home > Questions

Items moved to Trash not appearing in the Trash folder on Mac

After a macOS update, I deleted several items from my desktop. However, when I check them in the Trash folder, they don't exist, as if nothing has been moved to the Trash. What's going on with the Trash folder?

Best Answered by

Jenny Zeng

Answered on Tuesday, August 27, 2024

To show the deleted files in the Trash folder, your current account needs to be the owner of the directory with read, write, and execute permissions. Take the following steps:

  1. Open Terminal from the Applications > Utilities folder.
  2. Run the command below to create a new directory called ".Trash" in the user's home directory.mkdir ~/.Trash
  3. If it returns a message saying that the folder already exists, execute the following command to change the ownership of the directory to your account.sudo chown $UID ~/.Trash
  4. Type your admin login password and press Enter. (The password won't echo to the screen.)
  5. Then run the command below to change the permissions of the directory to allow your account to read, write, and execute within the directory.chmod u+rwx ~/.Trash