Recycle Vault — restore removed files

The Recycle Vault is Storage Studio's own recoverable trash. Everything the app removes for you — clearing a duplicate, freeing up space, uninstalling an app — goes here instead of being deleted, so you can always bring it back. It's separate from your Mac's Trash, and separate from Restore Points (which undoes moves, not deletes).

Open it from the More menu ••• → Recycle Vault, or ask Tuhi — she can also tell you what's in it.

Which disk is it on?

The short answer: your external fast drive holds the files, your Mac holds only the list — plus anything still waiting for the drive to be reconnected. The list is tiny, so the window can always tell you what's recoverable and which items need the drive plugged in to bring back. Keeping the files off your built-in drive is the whole point — if removed files stayed on your Mac, removing them wouldn't have freed anything.

The window tells you this itself. Every path in the list is where an item came from, which is the one place the vault isn't — so the vault's own size, shown at the top, can open it in Finder, and the vault's settings carry a Where it's kept section giving the same plain answer.

Where removed files rest

When your external SSD is connected, removed files rest on the drive, versioned and recoverable for about 6 months, then they clear automatically — so the space genuinely leaves your Mac.

If no drive is connected, Storage Studio holds them safely on your Mac in the meantime (with a warning), and moves them onto the drive automatically the moment you reconnect it. A size limit keeps that on-Mac holding area from ever filling your internal disk — if it's reached with no drive connected, new removals are paused until you connect one, so nothing is ever lost. The full safety net needs an external SSD, so without one you'll see a critical reminder.

Restoring

The window lists everything recoverable, newest first, with each item's name, where it came from, size, when and how it was removed, its version, and how long before it's cleared. Select one or many items and:

• Restore — back to where they came from (never overwriting an existing file).
• Restore to… — into a folder you choose.
• Undo last removal — everything from the most recent removal, in one step.
• Delete now — permanently (with a confirmation). A large selection is

erased one item at a time, with a count of how far it has got and the list emptying as it goes, so the window keeps responding while it works.

Settings let you change the on-Mac holding-area limit, how many versions of each file to keep, and how much of your drive the vault may use.