Sort trash files by date trashed

Question

One of the nice features of the recycle bin in Windows is the ability to sort it by the date an item was deleted. This way if you accidentally delete something, you can easily find it because it will be at the top of the list.

Is there any way to do something similar in Mac OS X's Trash folder?

I see that there is a date modified field, but that is not updated when the file is deleted.

Answer 1

I don't think there is anything exactly like that in Mac OS X.

However, if you accidentally deleted something in the Finder, you can use the "Undo" command to move the file back.

Answer 2

This hint from Mac OS X Hints describes how to create a simple Automator Folder Action that performs touch on every file that's trashed.

Answer 3

The following worked for me in OSX 10.7 Lion

Go to the AppleScript Editor, past in the following script and save it in /Library/Scripts/Folder Action Scripts

on adding folder items to this_folder after receiving added_items
    repeat with this_item in added_items
        do shell script "find " & quoted form of POSIX path of this_item & " -exec touch {} \\;"
    end repeat
end adding folder items to

Then right click on any folder in Finder, go to Services and click Folder Actions Setup. Cancel the dialog asking which script to attach. Click the checkbox to Enable Folder Actions, then click the plus sign to choose the recycle bin folder. Click CMD+SHIFT+G and type in ~/.Trash, click ok and then click open. Now on the right side click the plus sign to choose the AppleScript that you saved earlier. Thanks to Graham for the link which pointed me in the right direction.

Answer 4

Why do you use the Trash as a "backup folder" ??

I'll suggest that you use the build in Time Machine, and then only use the Trash for the stuff you really want to delete.

That is what the build in backup solution (Time Mashine) are there for - finding old files that has been deleted or modified.