Q. I have a USB drive that I use with my PC and my Mac. But whenever I delete something from it in OS X, it stores those files in the .Trashes folder, and makes the drive full even if it doesn’t look full in MAC OS X. So to clean it up I have to use Windows to delete the .Trashes folder. Can I do this using OS X?
A. If you delete something, then empty the trash, the .Trashes directory should be empty — if you simply leave those items in the trash, they haven’t been deleted yet and will reside inside the .Trashes folder.
I don’t think there’s a way to get rid of the .Trashes folder permanently — but you can make sure it doesn’t take up any space on the drive by fully emptying the trash.
Eileen Copeland said
I have the same issue, except that when I try to delete the file/folder on the USB drive, I am asked for my password. When I put it in, the file doesn’t go anywhere. It stays on the USB drive and doesn’t move in to the trash.
Simon Goodwin said
There is an easy fix for this, if you don’t mind typing two short commands:
http://www.nerdlogger.com/2007/07/immediate-delete-for-usb-drives-under.html