Trash Buddy Plus FAQs

Q: Can I eject mounted external drives with Trash Buddy Plus' Desktop Trash icon?

No. This is not currently possible. If you try it, Trash Buddy Plus will know about it and throw an error. Instead, it’s best to think of the Desktop Trash icon as a very accessible "portal" into your Mac's Trash – especially if you have large, high-resolution monitor(s) attached to your Mac.

Q: I dragged a bunch of files into the Mac's Trash can located on the Dock. Why didn't Trash Buddy indicate that the Trash is full?

To make Trash Buddy Plus work better, it is not linked to the Mac's Trash can located in the Dock. Instead, Trash Buddy is really meant to be used as a replacement for the Mac's Trash -- especially when the Show Trash on Desktop option is enabled.

However, you can force Trash Buddy Plus to recognize that there are files in the Trash by using the Inspect Trash option. In addition, Trash Buddy's Empty the Trash option can always be used to empty the Mac's Trash whether items have been placed in the Trash located on the Dock or via the Desktop Trash icon.

Q: I dragged many files and folders into the Trash, why doesn't Trash Buddy Plus show an accurate count of files?

Trash Buddy Plus counts folders as single files even if they contain sub-folders. I did this for performance reasons since it can take a bit of time to traverse through all of the folders and there would be a very noticeable delay if there were dozens of hundreds of folders in the Trash.

Q: The Desktop Trash icon seems to have vanished, but the option to show it on the Desktop is enabled. How do I fix this?

Sorry, you are experiencing this. The latest version should pretty much prevent it from happening. Should it happen, simply delete the Trash Buddy preference file (named com.ari.TrashBuddy.plist) located in the Preferences folder by dragging it into the Trash and then re-start Trash Buddy.

Q: Why does the Desktop Trash icon flicker briefly when updating the count of items in the Trash?

The Desktop Trash is actually a custom window shape, so I have to close and redraw it to ensure that I'm accurately reflecting the current full or empty state of the Trash, among other things.

Q: Trash Buddy Plus doesn't seem to startup with my Mac even when the Start at Login option is selected. What do I do?

This could happen if both Trash Buddy Plus and Trash Buddy are both installed on your Mac. They share a preference file, so could appear as if both have this option set, but the Start at Login option must be re-added to ensure the proper program loads as expected.

Q: Can Trash Buddy Plus feature more Desktop Trash styles?

Yes. However, after a point, it becomes a diminishing return because each new style takes up RAM, so there will be a finite limit. To deal with this, I would like to add the ability to use custom graphics for Trash icons in a future major release.

Q: How do I add a custom Trash style?

1. If Trash Buddy Plus is currently running, quit it.

2. Next, find suitable images in PNG format and place them in your Mac’s Preferences folder. You must supply two images and they must be named custom_trash1.png and custom_trash2.png, respectively. custom_trash1.png represents the empty Trash state while custom_trash2.png represents the full Trash state.

Trash Buddy Plus will look for these files when starting up. If it doesn’t find them, it will default to the macOS’ built-in Trash icon.

Both of the supplied images should have transparent backgrounds and be exactly 256 pixels wide and 256 pixels high. If they are not the proper width and height, then Trash Buddy Plus will ignore them and use the built-in macOS Trash style.

3. Relaunch Trash Buddy Plus.

4. Go to the Trash Buddy Plus Preferences window, select the "Custom Trash" option from the Desktop Trash Style menu.