A couple of weeks ago, I overheard Don Mayer talking about how he recovered several gigabytes of hard drive capacity when he finally emptied the trash in his iPhoto library. Many Mac users don’t realize that iPhoto (and some versions of iMovie) have their own Trash folders. These Trash folders are completely separate from the Mac’s main Trash can in the Finder.
When you delete a file in iPhoto, the file is actually moved into iPhoto’s Trash. This is a safety measure to prevent people from unintentionally or accidently deleting their digital photos. After all, when a digital photo is deleted, it’s not like you can go back to the negative and order a reprint.
iPhoto’s Trash can is located in the left pane of the iPhoto window. You can review its contents by double clicking the Trash can icon. Note that you can drag photos out of the Trash and back into your main iPhoto library if you decide you don’t want to delete them after all.
If you’re certain you want to get rid of files in the Trash, navigate to File > Empty iPhoto Trash. You can also Control-click (or right click) on the Trash icon to empty iPhoto’s trash. If there are hundreds (or even thousands) of files in iPhoto’s trash, it could take a few minutes to empty.
Unlike iPhoto, iMovie ’08 and iMovie ’09 don’t have their own Trash. They handle media differently than iPhoto. When you erase video clips in iMovie ’08 or ’09’s main Event Browser, they go directly into the Mac’s main Trash. However, earlier versions of iMovie HD maintain a separate Trash, just like iPhoto. Read more about this by clicking here.
Also, don’t forget to occasionally empty your Mac’s Trash. Many people put items in their Trash but never empty it, resulting in a dozens of gigabytes of wasted space. Small Dog employee Geoff Blanck recently emptied his Mac’s trash for the first time in over two years and recovered nearly 160 gigabytes of hard drive storage capacity!