How to show Trash on Desktop (Mac)?

Question

Is there any way to show icon of Trash on Desktop? The Trash is displayed on Dock. I have tried to create an alias to ~/.Trash on my Desktop, but it is just an alias and does not have the same behavior like the one on Doc with "Empty Trash" or "Secure Empty Trash" context menu.

I would like to see the Trash on Desktop or top menu bar so that 1st I can see its status (empty or not) and access to its context menu.

Answer 1

You can use iCan. It's better than most of the DIY solutions I've seen, which involve symbolic links or aliases or other 3rd party software. iCan basically replicates the good old trash icon from OS 9.

Answer 2

The creator of iCan has ceased distributing their softwares. I recommend Trash X instead.

Answer 3

I've been doing like this:

• Open workflow and choose to create a new application
• In the first step use Get Specified Finder Items
• In the second step use Run AppleScript

Put this code inside:

on run {input, parameters}
if (input as string) ends with ":" then
    if (list disks) contains (((input as string)'s characters 1 thru -2) as string) then
        try
            tell application "Finder"
                eject input
            end tell
        end try
    else
        try
            tell application "Finder"
                move input to the trash
            end tell
        end try
    end if
else
    try
        tell application "Finder"
            move input to the trash
        end tell
    end try
end if
return 1
end run

And that's it! Save as an application in your desktop. You can change the icon to resemble the trash.

It is not perfect, though. The icon will not change when the bin is full or empty and there are no context menu options as well. But it is free and works fine for deleting files and unmounting disks. I am thinking about researching a way of doing this fully operational, but maybe in the near future...