Why does deleting a file on a USB stick not free up space?

Solution 1:

I have found that nautilus changed behaviour sometime in the last year from actually deleting files on removable media to putting them into a hidden directory named .Trash or similar in the top-level directory of the media.

This is great for "oops"es, but did catch me unawares the first time I "deleted" 2GB of a 4GB thumb and still had no extra space.

I didn't explore if Empty Trash was available or worked, I just rm -rf the offending directory.

Solution 2:

To avoid all this, try using the shift+delete functionality. This way, deleted files do not go to trash. This is described in How to delete files bypassing trash

Solution 3:

In Nautilus, use the 'Show Hidden Files' option off the 'View' menu.

You should then see the '.Trash' folder. You can now Shift+Delete that folder, freeing up the space.