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Contributor Bezzy on the Accessibility category

People forget to empty their trash and get problems with space  
Written by sucotronic the 18 Feb 09 at 17:00. Global category: Accessibility. New
I've observed in my job that most of the users forgets to empty their trashes regularly, and suddenly one day they start to have problems due space limitations, or they don't know where is used their hard drive space.
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Solution #1: Add a configurable reminder
Written by sucotronic the 18 Feb 09 at 17:00.
It would be useful to add a kind of reminders that prevents the users about their files in the trash or the occupation in the hard drive. And also it could be configured with an option under the System>Preferences menu.




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Solution #2: Clean trash automatically
Written by snizovtsev the 18 Feb 09 at 17:43.
Add the "Trash size" option (percent or absolute value) and automatically clean oldest files from the trash to fit this limit.
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Solution #3: Compress old files
Written by vlo the 19 Feb 09 at 20:05.
The operating system should silently compress some of the files. Perhaps this could be done when the system is not being used, or before shutdown.

The files that would be compressed would be the files that have been in the trash for a certain amount of time (configurable).
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Solution #4: Trash with maximum size
Written by blaxter the 19 Feb 09 at 23:41.
Like in solution #2, add a "Trash size" option but instead of automatically clean oldest files form the trash, just say "the trash is full, please clean it up" when the user try to send more files to it
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Solution #5: Notification with "Delete now"-Button
Written by rakudave the 21 Feb 09 at 20:39.
Same as #1, but with a button to empty the trash directly from the notification-bubble
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Solution #6: Don't put unnessecary distractions in the system!
Written by kapipi the 21 Feb 09 at 21:17.
This solution is a response to solution #1. Solution #1 is great, except that as a default the user should not be notified about the size of trash, unless space on the partition is getting critically low.

The rationale:

- We don't want to distract the user's attention unnecessarily
- We don't want to force or lure the user to empty his trash unnecessarily.
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Solution #7: Low disk space notification instead of trash notification
Written by argon the 22 Feb 09 at 00:35.
The rationale of this problem is that sometimes people run out of disk space. So the notification should directly address this issue, and not just target the trash at an arbitary point, which will just lead to more annoying notifications.

Windows also does this when disk space is low...
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Solution #8: Create a System Cleanup widget
Written by 311005901 the 22 Feb 09 at 15:59.
A notification alerts users when the system is running low on free space.


When clicked on, users can use a widget to remove unwanted files.


(Click to see full sized image)
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Solution #9: auto-remove when disk-space is low
Written by koenfloris the 25 Feb 09 at 14:00.
ubuntu begins to fragment when you've got not enough disk-space. lets say that the limit is about 20%.

when disk space is to full...
ubuntu should auto-remove unnecessary things to free it up. of course, it should ask the user the empty the trash, to prevent data-loss. but other cash-like things should get cleaned up.
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Solution #10: Extend computer-janitor to support low disk space and trash notifications
Written by ziroday the 27 Feb 09 at 12:07.
computer-janitor (only in jaunty) is a small utility to clear up left over packages and left over files that have no use. It could easily be extended to support emptying the trash and notifying the user when disk space is low.
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Solution #11: Use the desktop icon to provide information
Written by Menti the 7 Mar 09 at 12:23.
As proposed in idea #14699. Desktop icons in general are static and do not provide any useful information. Trashcan icon is slightly dinamic: it has an empty state and a full state. Let the icon change to show how much trash there is. There could be a (configurable, with a sane default) max limit to the trash size, and the desktop icon could show what percentage of that limit is already in use.

This way, we could have more information without actually adding anything to the current setup, no more clutter; only better use of an already existing and underused graphic element of the desktop.
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Solution #12: Put the trash icon on the desktop
Written by dubrict the 10 Mar 09 at 06:19.
The reason people forget is because by default, the trash icon is as tiny as can be and hiding in the corner. Placing it on the desktop instead puts it more directly in the user's conscious, reminding them to empty it while not being obtrusive or complex.

The "running low on free space" reminder is reasonable, because it would solve this problem while taking on another. There's no reason to add any complexity to the system beyond this.
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Solution #13: Empty Trash On system Shut down
Written by MOSAM the 10 Mar 09 at 20:06.
Have the system ask you if you want to empty the trash when shutting down the as it does when unmounting disk drives.
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Solution #14: make gui to let the user decide
Written by linuxrules the 12 Mar 09 at 23:28.
settings dialog _ +/- X
=============================================================
put trash icon on desktop "on/off"

Empty Trash On system Shut down "on/off/ask/auto"

Use the desktop icon to provide information "on/off"

auto-remove when disk-space is low "on/off/ask/auto"

Notification with "Delete now"-Button "on/off"

Trash with maximum size & if to delete when size limit is exceeded "on -size-/off"

Compress old files "on/off/ask/auto"

Add a configurable reminder "on/off"
|advance..|
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Solution #15: Beyond Icons
Written by trustno1uk the 16 Mar 09 at 20:02.
Icons that represent valuable information at first glance can really save you some time.

Some users don’t care about emptying their thrash and also use it as another folder at times, this will remind them to empty it.

trash

REF: http://www.kumailht.com/blog/linux/10-features-ubuntu-should-implement/
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Solution #16: Automatically delete after 30 days
Written by OrelEagle the 5 Dec 09 at 20:38.
I'm using a script to delete files permanently after 30 days spent in the trash:

find ~/.local/share/Trash/files -maxdepth 1 -ctime +30 -exec rm -r \;
find ~/.local/share/Trash/info -maxdepth 1 -ctime +30 -exec rm -r \;

This way the user doesn't have to worry about emptying the trash but still has a "second chance" in case a file was deleted by mistake.
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Solution #17: Provide a suite of tools for the user to save/recover disk space
Written by yoda2031 the 28 Mar 11 at 17:26.
Computer Janitor already fulfils the requirement to recover disk space from files which are temporary/cached/etc.

Squashfs more-or-less fulfils the requirement to conserve space, but should be provided as an option on installation ("compress home directory" and "compress system directory" options)

A utility to automatically compress/remove components which have not been used for more than 30 days.

A utility which lists your installed applications in order of size and last used date. Allows the user to remove the bigger, unused packages.

A utility which allows you to "reorganise" your partitioning scheme.

Where applicable, these solutions should be accessible under an umbrella utility, possibly as an extension to the existing Disk Utility, or as a stand-alone utility.

See the 17 comments or propose a solution (latest comment the 7 May 13 at 15:00) >>