My Trash (icon)-folder has disappeared. I can evidently delete files, but I have no access to the Trash folder. What happened? And how can I fix it?
I have never seen that happen. There might be some help with previous posts here. Search “trash icon”.
The Trash (and Draft/Manuscript, and Research Folders) are supposed to be the only three folders you can’t delete…
Is it possible you’ve accidentally hidden it by using View > Outline > Hoist Binder on another folder? If you have, that menu item would be View > Outline > Unhoist Binder, and choosing it should return the Binder to the default state.
If it’s not that, then I don’t know what to suggest, sorry.
1 Like
There are three folder you can’t delete: Draft, Research and Trash.
You can, however, rename all of them and change their icons.
EDIT: You can’t change the Trash icon or rename it.
Create a new folder/file. Type something in it. Then move it to Trash and let us know what happens. You’ll still see the File/Folder you sent to Trash. Right-click (Crtl-click in Mac lingo, I think) on it and look for Reveal in Binder. If the option is greyed-out, it means Trash is still active.
The Trash Folder is at the very end of the Binder and cannot be shuffled around–well, at least not on Windows, Mac, I don’t know, it may be a feature).
2 Likes
The alternative is to start a new project and copy the content of your exiting project to the new project.
Do all required backups in between, then close the old project and if all is in place in the new project, rename the new project with the old project’s name, which should overwrite the old project with the new.
The whole process should take a few minutes as long as you copy level 1 data which will bring along the underlying content.
1 Like
Create a file with a unique name. Delete it. Then use the Project Search to locate it. (Check the Search Options to make sure “Exclude Trash Documents” is not checked.)
Once you’ve found it, right-click and choose the Reveal in Binder command.
As @brookter said, most likely the issue is that you have hoisted the Binder, are showing a Collection, or have otherwise limited the view so that the Trash folder is not visible.
1 Like
Actually, you can. But I think it is very unlikely that this is the reason for the missing trash.
This question is off topic, but how would you change the icon. The contextual menu doesn’t invoke a change icon option.
Also, Ctrl+Up Arrow doesn’t move the Trash.
1 Like
Should you find the file is in Trash, Reveal in Binder is greyed out for content in Trash on Windows. Is it different on Mac?
If you use project find and then click on the file in the Saved Search collection, then Reveal in Binder works on the Mac.
1 Like
Thanks! This is the only suggestion that worked for me.
I had accidentally (and stupidly, obvious) renamed the Trash folder with a name that I thought was a content-file. Oops. The icon was the same, but it’s so small that I didn’t recognize it as the trash icon.
1 Like
Reveal in Binder is always grayed out when you right-click on a file in the main Binder, because its location has already been “revealed.”
1 Like
No entry in the context menu, true, but Documents/Change Icon does work for the Trash too. Admittedly, I did not know that either until I looked for it for this very thread.
2 Likes
That can happen. And no, accidental is not stupid.
I suggest you use the “Show as Binder Seperator” option (by right-clicking on the items) for the Draft and Trash folders, and any custom folders (such as “Templates”) that are on the same Binder level and won’t be part of the compiled output, to visually distinguish them from the latter.
In my opinion, this should be the default in new Scrivener projects to avoid confusion.