Thumb Drive problems

[timkins]

My wife insists on printing pictures we have from our Photo Album. I use a Thumb drive to download the photos to so she can go to the local drugstore to print the photos. I have a couple of designated Thumb drives for this process.
After she prints them I usually select all and then delete the photos from the Thumb drive. Got to looking at the thumb drive the other night after deleting the photos and saw this SCREEN 1. Then I clicked on SCREEN 2 and this appeared. In my ignorance I highlighted the area on the left which shows APPLICATIONS, TIM, DESKTOP and started to delete the files on there but realized these were on the hard drive and I was deleting them from places I did not want deleted.Luckily I stopped and restored the deleted files to their original place but have I done something wrong? I just use the Thumb drives to transport photos to and from the machine used to print them at the drugstore and could not figure out why these are 1st on the Thumb drive and 2nd being deleted from my computer when I thought they were only on the thumb drive.

 

[Raz0rEdge]

Not sure what you're doing. But I see 2 Finder windows. On screen 1 you seem to have selected the USB drive (name M2 presumably) and in screen 2 you've clicked on the Pictures link which is sitting in your home folder.

The other things in the sidebar are just the normal links you see.

The Thumb drive would show up in the sidebar on the left below the iCloud group, so you'd have to scroll down to see those.

Once you eject the drive, that link disappears and all actions start with your HD folders and go from there.

 

[Jimmysb]

When I am using finder, and wish to delete anything I check the bottom of the finder page to ensure where I am:

 

[Raz0rEdge]

I do the same as Jim above, but note that Finder by default doesn't show that. So click on View->Show Path bar to see this to ensure that you are operating in the right place.

 

[MacInWin]

My wife insists on printing pictures we have from our Photo Album. I use a Thumb drive to download the photos to so she can go to the local drugstore to print the photos. I have a couple of designated Thumb drives for this process.
After she prints them I usually select all and then delete the photos from the Thumb drive. Got to looking at the thumb drive the other night after deleting the photos and saw this SCREEN 1. Then I clicked on SCREEN 2 and this appeared. In my ignorance I highlighted the area on the left which shows APPLICATIONS, TIM, DESKTOP and started to delete the files on there but realized these were on the hard drive and I was deleting them from places I did not want deleted.Luckily I stopped and restored the deleted files to their original place but have I done something wrong? I just use the Thumb drives to transport photos to and from the machine used to print them at the drugstore and could not figure out why these are 1st on the Thumb drive and 2nd being deleted from my computer when I thought they were only on the thumb drive.

View attachment 39237 View attachment 39238

1. I would suggest you give the thumb drive distinctive names to differentiate them. Something like "Thumb pictures" or "Stick pictures" so you can be sure when you select them. If you do that, then when the drive(s) mount, they should appear in the sidebar with those unique names and you can be sure to select them and not something on the internal drive. I would also suggest that instead of putting the files she wants to print in a folder on the thumb drive named "Pictures" make the folder on the thumb drive something like "ToBePrinted." That way, there is less chance of mistake.

2. Like Ashwin above, to me the images are slightly confusing. Is the machine named "M2," or your acount? I ask because the picture has "M2" in the top bar, but it's missing in the one with Pictures in the top bar.

3. macOS adds some default folders to Finder, one of which is helpfully named "Pictures." That is what is in the side bar of both images. Unfortunately, the sidebar ALWAYS shows some folders that are on the internal drive, like the Home folder and in your case "Pictures." But the images she printed from the thumb drive may or may not have been in the "Pictures" folder in the sidebar. I take it that you started deleting "Pictures" and saw images disappearing from your internal drive, which tells me you selected "Pictures" in the sidebar and went to the Pictures folder there instead of the thumb drive.

So, use creative naming for these kinds of things to make it easier to determine exactly where you are before starting any delete process.

 

[Rod]

Ditto from me and do use the "Show Path" option. It's one of those features I think should be on by default. Finder > View > Show Path. You can also click on the sub folders in the path to open them individually. It provides a good insight into how the Apple filing system works.