Trash and large files

Trash holds the photos and videos you’ve deleted until they’re removed for good. Large files lists your biggest originals so you can decide what to move to the trash.

Open the trash from Trash in the sidebar, or from Settings, then Trash.

How long items stay

Deleted items are kept for 30 days by default, then removed permanently. Your administrator sets the number of days in the server’s trash settings, and can turn the trash off altogether. With the trash off, deleting is permanent straight away. Keep Permanent deletion warning on in your app settings to be asked before anything is deleted for good.

The summary at the top of the trash shows how many items are listed, the combined size of their originals, and how long they’re kept.

What the trash shows

• Only your own items. Nobody else’s trash is ever listed, whatever their role.
• Locked items only after you unlock. While your session is locked, Locked items stay in the trash but aren’t shown or counted, and Empty your trash leaves them alone. They come back into view when you unlock.
• Nothing your Locked rules hide, such as people, pets and tags you’ve chosen to keep private, while your session is locked.
• Missing external library files. When a file in an external library disappears from disk, the next library scan puts it in the trash with a note, and brings it back when the file is found again. The trash can’t restore or delete these. An item you trashed yourself whose file went missing later is restored or deleted like any other.

Restore

Restore one item, your selection, or everything. Items go back exactly where they were: their albums, favourites, archive, tags, stacks and lock are all kept, because moving to the trash never removed them.

Delete permanently

Delete selected and Empty your trash both show you how many items will go, and which ones, before anything happens.

1. Select items and choose Delete selected, or choose Empty your trash.
2. Review the list.
3. Type DELETE and the number of items to confirm.

Empty your trash always covers your whole visible trash, whatever filters you’ve applied.

If anything changed between your review and your confirmation, such as an item restored in another tab, a new item trashed, an item locked or unlocked, or your session locking, nothing is deleted and you’re asked to review again.

Other tabs and devices

What you trash, restore or delete in one tab or on another device shows up everywhere else without a reload:

• An item you move to the trash appears in the trash in your other open tabs, and leaves their timelines.
• A restored item comes back into your other open timelines. A very large restore reloads the timeline instead.
• If the item open in a viewer is trashed, restored or deleted elsewhere, the viewer moves to the next item, or closes when there isn’t one.

Large files

Go to Settings, then Utilities, then Large files to see your largest originals. It also lists what partners share with you, but only an item’s owner can move it to the trash.

1. Select the items you want to get rid of.
2. Choose Move selected to trash and review the list.
3. Confirm. If you change your mind, Undo restores exactly the items that moved.

Move selected to trash isn’t available while the trash is turned off, because deleting would then be permanent.

Recent utility activity

Recent utility activity keeps a history of what you moved to the trash, and undid, from Large files: each change with its items, their sizes and the time. It’s kept for a year, up to 500 changes, and deleted with your account. Locked items are named only after you unlock, and permanently deleted items are only counted.

How much space you get back

Sizes are the size of each original. They aren’t a promise of freed disk space:

• Permanent deletion happens in the background. The trash page says how many permanently deleted items are still being removed.
• Shared originals stay until their last user goes. If your server uses physical deduplication, an original that another account’s item still uses stays on disk. The review tells you how many of your chosen items share their original, and how much of the total will stay on disk. See Duplicates.