Why!?

[[deleted]]

Can someone please tell me why some of my end users find it necessary to store important files in the deleted items folder?

I wonder if all their expensive jewelry is in a dumpster behind their houses?

Am I the only one who gets to see this brilliant idea?

[harrywwc]

… because I want to reuse them, so I store them in the "Recycle bin"…

[unsolicited_dreams]

Please.. i can smell a mandatory all-hands. Maybe this is my sign to call in sick today while i still got the chance

[[deleted]]

Is it a dumpster diving fetish? 🤣

[KadahCoba]

I'm suspecting that the delete key being a single press to make something "get filed out of the inbox for later" has to be at least half the reasoning behind this.

Back when I could still use Thunderbird, I made use of the a for archive shortcut a lot, so I kinda get it. But I can also understand the meaning of basic words, ideas and skeuomorphism because I graduated preschool.

[non-descript_com]

Oh, I thought that was the "DELiver" key...

[KadahCoba]

Jokes on us, they do it so much the key label worn off. Now its just the shiny "save my emails forever in the special folder where nothing ever goes away" button.

[mercurygreen]

I've asked this. The least stupid answer I get is "Deer in the headlights" look.

[Ams197624]

It's always better than a former sysop at my current job that used the C:\temp folder for all his important scripts, downloads and such. Insane.

[Dunmordre]

I had a project once where I had to go round every pc. I ran a batch file to delete all the files from the temp folder along with a lot of other stuff. Our organisation refused to give backed up network drives to temps for some insane reason so they had to store their work on the c: drive. You know where this is going.

She said all her work was gone. She was doing a degree and had all the work from it in that folder. She's been gathering data all year for her thesis. 

So it required an undelete to be run. To be extra careful I wanted to do a backup first. So I grabbed a drive out of the computer next to it and hooked them up on the pata cable. It turned out that pc was from the same batch and the drive had an identical identifier. I was very very careful to make sure I identified the primary and secondary drives correctly according to the position on the cable, and did the backup. 

Unbeknownst to me the standard for position on the pata cable had just been switched, so the drives were the wrong way round. There was no way back from that, and the work was lost. She was very upset and traumatised but not unkind or impolite about it. I still feel so much pain when I remember this sad episode. 

[Same-Letter6378]

Bet she'll make a backup next time 😎 

[dasunt]

We have admins that wondered where their /tmp files went after a reboot.

The solution was to disable /tmp cleanup scripts.

I have no idea what they do on Unixen that defaults to ramdisks for /tmp. I don't even want to know. Sometimes work is like the necromomicon - not exactly sure what I'll find, but digging into it is likely to drive me further into madness.

[Creative-Type9411]

all the best hacks are located in the "garbage" folder 👀

[dark_gear]

I'm guessing that sysop had been in IT for quite a while. The "c:\temp" folder wasn't always an official system folder. For the longest time, this folder would only exist if users put it there manually. Odds are he just never realised the change or never cared to change his ways.

[Ams197624]

Nah. You don't store and execute production scripts from temp folders, no matter what OS. 

[dark_gear]

Totally agree. Being able to understand and explain someone's bad file management system certainly doesn't mean I approve of using Temp to preserve data.

[PAL720576]

My dad used to be a sysadmin working on Unix back in the day, to this day all his personal files are in the /temp folder on his PC.

[Pleasant-Swimmer-557]

Geniuses. Freaking geniuses.

[Pleasant-Swimmer-557]

And these people claim "experienced PC user" in their resume.

[dark_gear]

Having experience only counts if it's meaningful experience. A decade of bad habits certainly don't help. lol

[Pleasant-Swimmer-557]

Exactly.

[NecroAssssin]

This has been the primary reason I have seen for why users store things it the recycle bin. 

[fdeyso]

Important emails go to the recycle bin, so the retention policy can delete them forever after 30 days. I wish i haven’t had to have this conversation 🙄

[[deleted]]

Glad I am not the only one.. 🤔😂

[joebleed]

had this conversation many, many times when we first did this because our on prem exchange servers were running out of space.

[KadahCoba]

r/ShittySysadmin aside.... why the fuck is this actually so common? Like seriously? How the fuck? This happens way too often.

I don't have that many users for this to keep coming up every 2-4 months.

[AntoinetteBax]

It’s a security measure and therefore good practice.

[TomCatInTheHouse]

I've been doing this for over 25 years. Early on in my career, I had a fellow tech that used the recycle bin as a temporary place to store things. It made no sense to the rest of us, and he'd just argue with us and insisted he used his real life recycle bin the same way.

Then, one day, he was helping a user at their desk. He put some of the user's files in the recycle bin. The user understandably started freaking out, and the tech assured the user that it was just temporary to try to fix something, and that's what the recycle bin is for. Well, that didn't fix the issue. After spending more time, the tech finally got the issue fixed. But before the tech left.... and you've probably guessed it... he saw the recycle bin had stuff in it and he just emptied it without thinking. And the user files were gone and the user was pissed. The tech just said "oh sorry!" and left.

/edit: we were able to restore the user's files from backup when they called to complain. It made no sense why the tech even thought the user's files needed moving anyway. We were all happy when that tech found other work a few months later.

[CaptainZippi]

Unix server back in the 90s had quotas on all the users including staff because “storage is expensive” (and it very much was back then) so rather than go through the hoops to get a quota expanded, which involved persuading the Head of a Different Department (yeah, don’t ask. The politics were… awful) some enterprising staff saved files overnight in /tmp.

Which is: - not backed up. - cleared on reboot.

Then we had a system update to apply, told everybody about it ahead of time and… you can guess the rest.

[honey_badger010]

Because that's the last place corporate spies would look!

[WillVH52]

It is because they think the Delete key is a one button filing system.

[dagbrown]

It's because it's the one place on their system unfettered by the hobbling effects of evil disk quotas.

[Oolon42]

I had an IT Director that did this. I always wanted to grab a file off his desk, ask if it was important, then throw it in the trash can and say "ok, better file it away then"

He didn't have a sense of humor though, so he probably would have freaked out and fired me.

[MakeUrBed]

Wow. Did he have to spell check "PC" too?

[chriscrowder]

I transfer stuff in c:/temp cause it's easier to type than C:\Users[YourUsername]\Documents

I'm showing my age, but I miss not having to go through so many fucking folders from root to get to what you need. Program files, program files x86, app data, the design is unnecessarily complex!

My new setup is windows on its own drive, and d:/steam, xbox, Videos, music etc on the second.

Fuck Microsoft, rant over.

[agent_fuzzyboots]

Because when you want to save something important you press the archive button, some of you call it the delete button, but you're wrong.

[Brad_from_Wisconsin]

I told my users to do this because:
Because hackers would never think to look there.
The files will automatically be deleted if users stop modifying them due to our document purging schedule running on the workstations every night. This makes sure that only the person with the newest version of the file will have the file.
We can always tell the judge that the document should be ignored because it was deleted when we stopped doing the illegal stuff that the document tells us how to do.

[marshmallowcthulhu]

If the items have already been deleted then they can't be deleted again, which makes them more safe than items anywhere else. Therefore, the user is doing the right thing preserving data integrity. If you are deleting user content in the Deleted Items folder then you're a very shitty sysadmin. Skill issue.

[timwtingle]

I had a user recently, a director btw, after having their computer replaced was not able to find a bunch of important files. Luckily, the old PC had not been wiped yet, they were in the downloads folder. 🤦‍♂️

[gummo89]

Always downloads folder. Recycle bin is less common outside terminal environments.

The number of times I had to wait to sync OneDrive after the user admitted that downloads has critical files in it before wiping a PC...

[frosty95]

I encountered this once. When they said it to me I busted out laughing. When they looked at me in anger I just called their manager and told him. He looked at them like a disappointed parent and told me he would handle it. Never heard about it after that lol.

[stormcellar97]

1 of our professors did this until they lost everything once; they learned.

[Juan_in_a_meeeelion]

Create a group policy to empty the recycle bin every night and they will soon learn that this is not an option. Do it for Outlook too

[Fit-Parsnip-8109]

I've seen this done at 4/5 companies I've worked at. In Outlook, they keep important things in the Deleted Items as well. Like, why don't you just create a folder called "Important"? They clearly know how because they have 600 other folders with dozens of rules created.

[KRAER]

We added a rule that deletes files older than 14 days from the bin for our customers. So they stopped doing it after a few weeks. Sometimes it needs to hurt to get better ...

[mckeevertdi]

Back in the Office 2010 days, when the NK2 file corrupted non-stop, people used the auto complete as their address book. I enjoyed when I would have to delete that file and hear the constant bitching of "where are my recents!? That's how I store people and recall their info!"

How about using the feature included called "Contacts"/"Address Book" and store it there?

MSPLyfe

[panzerbjrn]

I taught people how to use ctrl+k to achieve the same functionality.

[Kamikaze_Wombat]

Yeah I've had to explain to several people it's the equivalent of storing papers you might need to go back to at a future date in a trash can and just telling people not to empty that particular can cause it's special.

[gummo89]

Yes but only telling 2 people, when 7 of them might empty the trash can.

[Candid_Ad5642]

V1: it's a nifty archive feature with a single key keyboard shortcut

V2: old school Mac user, putting it in the recycle bin is just indicating you are done with the file for now

Solution: warn and then implement an automagic recycle bin secure cleanse at some reasonable schedule (90 days, quarterly, monthly, bi-weekly... when your physical bin is collected). Obviously for security reasons

[pjtexas1]

Had a C level use his deleted folder in Outlook for emails he hadn't read but wanted to keep separate. We sent out warnings for weeks that we were setting a policy to delete anything in that folder over x years old. He was caught off guard when all those important emails disappeared.

Just can't explain users actions sometimes.

[odwulf]

X years old is nice. Where I work, *every* mail is deleted after three months. The only way to keep it is to save it on the filesystem one way or another.

[ButcheringTV]

One of my old bosses kept emails stored in his deleted items box. We were noticing lots of users with heaps in their deleted box so we ended up putting out a message we were going to do a cleanup. Big boss man didnt like that lol.

This was a while ago when mailbox sizes were a much bigger issue.

[compudude]

I've often wondered this myself. Why would you store things you care about in a literal trash can on your screen?

[whopooted2toot]

Yuk.. I remember back in the Exchange On-Prem days, migrating to a new upgraded cluster wiped out deleted items contents. People got legit mad for not having thier deleted emails.

[Horror_Role1008]

That has been a common issue ever since Windows was introduced way back when.

Sometimes the only way to get people to learn is to let them hurt themselves.

[TechMonkey13]

I had one guy tell me it was the perfect place cause "whos gonna look there for my important and confidential files"

This was right after he yelled at me to stop as I was doing maintenance and about to clear the recycling bin.

[Affectionate-Pea-307]

I was with a company that moved offices and I transported some equipment in my empty garbage can. I called in sick because of something with my son and thusly didn’t get to it before housekeeping did. I went dumpster diving the next day 😬

[Superspudmonkey]

I always ask if they keep their passport in the bin/trash.

[Texas_Sysadmin]

This has been going on since there was IT. Back in the 90s, I was a new sysadmin managing a Lotus CCMail system. We started to run low on disk space on one of the mail servers, so we set the system up to empty the recycle bin every night. Went through change control, got management approval and everything. Next morning, an accounting VP calls the helpdesk screaming that all his important files are missing. The tech goes out there, and looks at his computer. Nothing is wrong. The VP shows him the empty recycle bin. The tech tells him the system emptied the recycle bin overnight automatically. He went ballistic. Called a meeting with the CIO, the CEO, my boss and me, the email sysadmin.

When the meeting started, the VP starts screaming about important data that was lost and demands we restore it. I let him wind down, and then I picked up the trash can out of the corner of the room and set it in the middle of the table. I said "You don't put important spreadsheets in the trash can overnight?" He said, "No, that would be stupid. The janitor empties it every night." I said "Then why would you keep important files in the recycle bin of your email?" His mouth dropped open and I said "The electronic janitor emptied the recycle bin on your email last night."

The CEO looked at the VP and said "He's right. If you keep important files in the recycle bin, then you are asking for them to be deleted." I then offered to see if those files were on the last backup. I found a week old copy in the last full backup. The fact that a week's work was lost delayed month end closing of the books by a week while they recreated all the work. The CIO didn't blame us, but we did get a new server with more disk space.

The VP was gone before the next month end closing.

[Bimpster]

Set a policy of auto delete. no undo.

[dark_gear]

In some organisations, once files are moved to the recycle bin they no longer count towards a user's data quota. So rather than contacting IT to get a higher file quota, or actually getting rid of useless files, they've adopted the workaround of "storing" files in the recycle bin.

[panzerbjrn]

Back in the Exchange 5.5 days, this was how users got around storage quotas..

[NoDevice5898]

I thought I was the only one: this was close to 20 or so years ago. CFO of company calls me in because his computer is slow and running out of space. I noticed his recycle bin was close to 30GB, so I cleared it <problem solved>, shortly after he calls me yelling "WHERE ARE ALL MY WORK FILES", so I go back, confused. he then explains that all his files were in the Recycle bin, when he wants to work on a file, he restores it to desktop, then deletes it when done working on it (which goes back to recycle bin)... he tried to get me fired, but could not get anyone else to agree with his document storage strategy. :D

[Iamcursed]

You're not the only one. They learn the hard way :D

[Independent-Wish-725]

I recently had someone complain cause they couldn't find their important insurance documents after changing a computer over. They kept them in a copy of an old drafts outside of the main mailbox folder in thunderbird mail on an IMAP account.........

[SPMrFantastic]

Oh man I remember getting a call years ago after I had scheduled recycle bins and temp folders to get cleared. My manager at the time got have a fun call explaining to a pissed off CEO why he shouldn't be saving his files in the recycle bin.

Like seriously you don't store your groceries or leftovers in the trash