I keep cleaning it once any file goes to it even though I have it set to clean automatically. I just deleted an important file thanks to this habit. I’d like to modify things so I can save myself from the practice of quickly emptying trash.
Is there a way to hide the trash can from the dock?
No.
Neither the Trash nor the Finder can be removed from the dock.
The trash can is working as intended - it's a "pre-deletion folder" that allows you to recover something before it gets permanently deleted. Going in and arbitrarily emptying it because "any file goes into it" defeats that purpose.
Allow it to do it's job and delete files periodically, automatically.
I apologize since I didn't test this solution (not certain if it works on macOS Catalina), but I really think Arturo deserves an answer whether people agree with the goal or not
I find the attitude that "the Designer is always right" - that seems so pervasive in the Apple community - unconstructive. In my opinion sometimes - arguably rarely - users know what they are doing, and they definitely always have the right to experiment and mess things up if they want to. E.g. to find solutions to the numerous edge cases that were intentionally neglected (as a trade-off) or not conceived of by the Designers. There are additional reasons (like non-aligned goals for the users and Designers) but this is not a TED talk.
Copy-pasted (with light editing) from original answer by Minimal Mac:
To hide the separator line in the dock, I downloaded an app called cDock and changed the theme to Transparent.
To add the trash folder to the Finder sidebar, go to this website and follow the instructions: http://www.macworld.com/article/1138661/trashinsidebar.html. (I wouldn't try to change the folder icon, as he says to in the article.) You might want to do this before removing Trash from the dock.
Go to "Macintosh HD/System/Library/CoreServices." Find "Dock." Right-click, and select "Show Package Contents." Go to "Contents/Resources." Find the "DockMenus.plist" file and copy it to your desktop (or somewhere else on your Mac). We do this so that we can backup our DockMenus.plist file before editing it.
Download and install PlistEdit Pro (http://download.cnet.com/PlistEdit-Pro/3000-2247_4-47890.html—try to avoid downloading the extra stuff the process tries to get you to accept).
Download the DockMenus.plist file from this website: http://www.mediafire.com/download/ze7d0wci9j014ys/DockMenus.plist+2.zip. (It's from the guy who made this YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Miwmapcrig.)
Open this downloaded file in PlistEdit Pro. Go to "dock" and display the children underneath it. After clicking on "7," add a "New Sibling." This new sibling will have two children underneath it. Edit to match what you see in the picture below. Save this file.
Copy this file to the "Resources" folder, replacing the original "DockMenus.plist" file (which you should have already backed up in step 1).
You can now right-click on the Trash icon and select "Remove from Dock." You can right-click on the empty space and do the same. (You can even remove the Finder icon, but I don't recommend that).
This process is reversible. In fact, every time you log out of your Mac account and log back in, the space and the trash icon will reappear. Just right-click both of them and select "Remove from Dock."
I have a folder called zzTrash in my home directory (the filename puts it at the end of the directory listing). I stick it on the Finder sidebar. Inside that folder I have folders like zzTrash2019-08-09 which contain, guess what, all the stuff from the time I emptied trash on that date.
I drag unwanted files either into zzTrash or into actual Trash. At intervals ( monthly; realistically when name collisions start to be annoying), I create a date folder inside zzTrash, and drag stuff from a) the actual trash and b) the stuff that is cluttering up zzTrash (which isn't a dated folder) into that dated folder.
Things which I positively know I will never need, get left or put in actual Trash, and emptied. This would never be content I created! This would be stuff I downloaded or generated from other data.
At rare intervals, date files from zzTrash get moved to an external drive.
If I am short disk space, first thing I do is hit "show all sizes" and root through zTrash looking for any biggies I can trash for real.
So if your itch is to empty out the Trash, move it to zzTrash immediately.
Regardless, you have to master your habits. Obviously, you've carved a rut in your road / created reflexive autopilot about deletion, and you've stopped putting enough thought into your actions. Solving that problem is why I do zzTrash.
Turn off auto-empty, obviously. That setting is not appropriate for content creators, it is for content consumers.
zzTrash function sounds like what actual Trash is for. Why overcomplicate?
Commented
Nov 27, 2019 at 16:41
Trash" is not a proper name for your "Backup".
Commented
Nov 28, 2019 at 9:17
You can start treating mac's trash the way Photos' trash works. It auto-deletes stuff after 30 days. This preference is can be set in Finder Preferences → Advanced tab as "Remove items from Trash after 30 days". And then convince yourself that you're not under a space crunch.
Also, tick "Show warning before emptying the Trash" which can be a bit of a deterrent if you keep your finger away from keyboard, specially "Enter" key.
You can also set the sort order to "Name" & lock the last file. Refraining from "Empty Trash", you should use select all → delete immediately. This would ask for password, in the end won't let you delete a single file.
I also want MacOS to gave us this setting! Idially it would be in system preferences, perhaps it's accesable at an unknown-to-me OS level.
What is possile is a 'Dock replacement' -- a third party program that will hide your doc and relace it with it's own 'better' vesion of what that third party developer thinks is a better Dock. One such advantage is hiding the trash can 🗑️→🙈=😄. The one's I know of are:
Dock example w/out 🗑️
