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Flash memory devices (including "flip" cameras, USB flash memory sticks, and camera memory cards) may have files in their "trash can" taking up space on them which can be restored (if you still want them) or deleted (if you want more space).

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Steps

  1. Restore or Delete Files from a Flash Drive's Hidden "Trash" Folder Step 1.jpg
    1
    These steps should work from a computer that is running Mac OSX Ubuntu Linux, Fedora, or a similar distribution. Slightly adapted instructions should work for other Linux distributions, and maybe even within the Cygwin application on windows. All terminal commands should be followed by pressing "enter"
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  2. Restore or Delete Files from a Flash Drive's Hidden "Trash" Folder Step 2.jpg
    2
    Open the terminal
  3. Restore or Delete Files from a Flash Drive's Hidden "Trash" Folder Step 3.jpg
    3
    Type "cd /media" in Linux or "cd /volumes" in MacOS X (leave out the quotes here and in the other steps)
  4. Restore or Delete Files from a Flash Drive's Hidden "Trash" Folder Step 4.jpg
    4
    Type "ls" (that's a lowercase L) and look for the name of your flash drive
  5. Restore or Delete Files from a Flash Drive's Hidden "Trash" Folder Step 5.jpg
    5
    Type "cd name_of_flash_drive" (replace "name_of_flash_drive" with the actual name your computer gave to your flash drive)
  6. Restore or Delete Files from a Flash Drive's Hidden "Trash" Folder Step 6.jpg
    6
    Type "ls -a" (don't forget the space followed by a dash) and look for a folder like ".trash" or ".trashes". You may want to look inside all of the folders that are hidden (that is, all folders whose names start with a "." period)
  7. Restore or Delete Files from a Flash Drive's Hidden "Trash" Folder Step 7.jpg
    7
    Type "cd name_of_folder" replacing name_of_folder with the appropriate name
  8. Restore or Delete Files from a Flash Drive's Hidden "Trash" Folder Step 8.jpg
    8
    When inside of the hidden folder, type "ls -a" to see what's there. you can move all of the files out of the hidden folder by doing "mv * ../" (move all files to parent directory) or do it one by one by typing "mv name-of-file ../"
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Tips

  • in Linux, MacOSX, and Cygwin, "cd" stands for "change directory"
  • "cd .." stands for "go to the parent directory", the directory your current directory is inside of while "ls -a" stands for "list files and folders, including hidden ones"
  • windows may delete files on a USB device completely, rather than moving them to the trash (also known as the recycle bin).

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