Have you noticed that disk space is filling up fast even when your Linux computer’s trash folder is empty? There’s a strong possibility that VS Code is responsible for it.
A not-so-recent issue in the Snap version of VS Code has cropped up again, and there’s no fix in sight.
An Absurd Bug
When you normally delete a file, it goes into the trash folder, located at ~/.local/share/Trash. GNOME has supported automated emptying of the trash at selected intervals through its settings for quite some time now.
So, let’s say you delete trash every seven days.
Linux noob here. Is this something everyone needs to worry about, or would I know if I had installed this cancer?
Well, it is worrying to some extent. One can use the computer normally if said problem is present, but it could hinder you in some ways. If you see your disk becoming abnormally large, you should probably check what’s taking so much space, in this case it was snap version of VSCode, but then snap is usually frowned upon. What can I say, the least you can probably do is stay informed if those things bother you, but then again it’s easy to find solutions on the internet if you can’t keep up.
Depends on how you install the software.
If you used snap to install it, then this affects you.
From the article, uninstall the software and use a .deb, .rpm or flatpack installer instead.
Essentially the snap version has a long standing bug that causes deleted files to be stored outside the normal “trash can” structure.
Even if you installed this it’s not usually going to be a big deal
Use a disk space analyzer program like Filelight
https://flathub.org/en/apps/org.kde.filelight
Or https://flathub.org/en/apps/org.gnome.baobab