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I would like to not show the trash icon at the bottom of the Unity launcher.

Is this possible without having to recompile anything? :P

Knowledge Cube
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scribu
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3 Answers3

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In the desktop interface, the Dash icon and the Trash icon use the top and bottom slots of the launcher, always. We have not allowed the removal of the Trash so that we can enable developers to trust that it will always be there, which means "drag to the trash" is always possible.

It might be worth considering relaxing the requirement that the trash always be on the bottom corner, allowing other icons to take that spot. A blueprint to that effect, discussing the consequences and solutions to issues that might arise, would be welcome.

Mark Shuttleworth
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    My personal experience (on Windows, as well as Ubuntu) is that if something isn't there that the documentation "trusts" is there, then I remember that the reason is that I removed it, and there is no problem. I'd like to remove the trash icon, perhaps even with a strong warning. – jpaugh Dec 03 '11 at 22:28
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    Ouch ouch ouch. I get the rationale, and hate the placement. One of my four most accessible corners of my screen, taken over by something that I have the delete key for anyway. – Kzqai Apr 11 '12 at 15:38
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    Why would a program need to drag something, anyway? A robot program should be hitting the delete key if it wants to delete something, not dragging it to the trash, the same way real users hit the delete key, rather than dragging to the trash. – AJMansfield Jul 02 '13 at 13:10
  • It's unbelievable that now a days this thing persists. It's pointless not get ride of this functionality. – Victor Oliveira Apr 18 '14 at 17:02
  • I like unity launcher at the left, but for some reason, i always end up click unintentionally in the trash button. Maybe my fingers are too big. Anyways, i wish i could remove that button. Sometimes i'm in the middle of an important work and "appear" the trash foler... – Sergio Aug 14 '16 at 19:27
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Currently it's not possible. You should start a blueprint for this in Launchpad, so we can see it in future versions of Unity.

fitojb
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2

I have found a way to visually make the trash icon disappear. The icon will still spatially be there. Make backups of the icon image if desired.

  • Open a terminal.
  • type sudo -H nautilus
  • press enter
  • type "trash" into the search bar
  • There will be many pictures of the trash (full or empty) icon with the .svg extension. Select the second largest version of the trash icon and open it with inkscape.
  • Press select all (CtrlA) and then press the deletekey on your keyboard. Save and exit.
  • Do the same thing for the empty version/full version if you have not already.
  • Reboot your computer.

You should then see that the trash icon has visually disappeared and if you mouse over its usual location at the bottom of the launcher, a flag should pop up saying "Trash" or "Empty trash" as usual.

Joshua Sims
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