# Tivo and Undelete!



## TivoGirlP608 (Jan 6, 2006)

Does tivo have plans to make an undelete button?
Or maybe a password protected lock so no one can delete your shows?
Or is there a way I do not know about to undelete my shows?
I am so tired of turning on tivo and my shows are gone. I hear un oh,, from the hubby,,, Its happened over and over and over.
I never suffered from Road rage, but I swear its unleashed a new rage in me and I am calling it TivoRage!
We have 2 Tivo's in the household I thought one for me and one for hubby, but he has a delete problem,,,,, I swear he just likes the sound or the power of the control of tivo.
You know I was thinking maybe a log in like Windows were you could log into your own profile and see only shows you record? that way you could have control over your programs only : )
Anyone else suffer with this problem??


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## megazone (Mar 3, 2002)

Heh - you need to train hubby. Hide the remote to your TiVo. 

Unfortunately there is no undelete at this time, and no announced plans for it.


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## Redux (Oct 19, 2004)

The word "hack" tends to elicit feelings of inadequacy.

Hacking a Tivo is very easy if you're willing to devote a little (I would claim entertaining) time.

Once hacked, undeleting is easy. I would call it an essential Tivo function that no Tivo user should be without.


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## mrjam2jab (Jul 23, 2004)

A Trash Can/Recycle Bin would be a nice feature. That way one could undelete things that are inadvertently, deleted by TIVO.

But i guess sitting in this "folder" the shows would still be taking up the same amount of space?


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## dmdeane (Apr 17, 2000)

mrjam2jab said:


> A Trash Can/Recycle Bin would be a nice feature. That way one could undelete things that are inadvertently, deleted by TIVO.
> 
> But i guess sitting in this "folder" the shows would still be taking up the same amount of space?


Deleted shows take up the same amount of space no matter what, whether TiVo, Inc. ever adds an "undelete" or a "recycle bin" feature or not. When we delete shows now, it isn't actually deleted until later when TiVo needs to overwrite the diskspace with new content. Until then, it is recoverable - currently, only via hacks.

However, if TiVo itself deletes the show, it is because it needed the space, so it writes over the oldest show that isn't protected. So undelete only protects you against accidental deletion by yourself or someone else using the TiVo; it does not protect against deletion by TiVo when space runs out, nor would undelete work past a certain period of time, since TiVo will overwrite the deleted show sooner or later, depending on how full your hard drive is and how often your TiVo is recording new shows. The undelete feature would only save you when you realized your mistake pretty quickly; it wouldn't save a show that you or someone else accidently deleted a few days ago (unless your disk is empty or you record very few shows per day).

I've no idea why TiVo still refuses to implement this feature. It's a nobrainer and we know TiVo actually did develop software versions of this which were never released, so it's not like they haven't thought about it. It's just not a priority for them for some reason; must be one of those "design philosophy" type things or internal politics.

Search this forum's archives; this request for "undelete" comes up a lot. Obviously there is pentup demand for it. Maybe TiVo will start making more and more (all?) of TiVo's API's available for HME development, and then we "power users" could finally have our own undelete apps or scripts written up by users or third party developers - assuming this hasn't already been done? I don't keep current with what is going on in the hacker and HME communities; once I had multiple TiVos with lots of hard drive space, I just forced myself to get out of the habit of deleting shows after I was done watching them. Now I just watch my shows, and let them be deleted automatically later by TiVo when TiVo needs the space for new shows. This solves my problem, but doesn't help someone who has to share TiVos with someone who deletes things before they should.


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## mattack (Apr 9, 2001)

TivoGirlP608 said:


> We have 2 Tivo's in the household I thought one for me and one for hubby, but he has a delete problem,,,,,


Is this the other side of the "wife won't delete shows" thread??

(No, but that's the first thing I thought of.)


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## TiVoPhish (Mar 12, 2003)

LOL I'm the wife that WILL delete shows that go unwatched too long... hubby has learned that if he records something he better watch it within 2-3 weeks or I'm going to start bugging him about watching it so I can delete it. I have this "thing" about too much clutter on the TiVo, LOL

A recycle bin would be nice, but would really only work for someone who doesn't record a LOT of shows... when files are deleted they could be moved there and marked as lowest priority and be overwritten only as necessary... but if you record a lot of stuff you're just not going to have the space to maintain those files for very long.


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## Test (Dec 8, 2004)

TiVoPhish said:


> LOL I'm the wife that WILL delete shows that go unwatched too long... hubby has learned that if he records something he better watch it within 2-3 weeks or I'm going to start bugging him about watching it so I can delete it. I have this "thing" about too much clutter on the TiVo, LOL


TIVO ....... tv her way? the trash can would be great, plus delete folders or pw protect folders...im sure it was all mentioned before


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## Fraser+Dief (Nov 18, 2005)

TiVoPhish said:


> A recycle bin would be nice, but would really only work for someone who doesn't record a LOT of shows...


No, not quite. It would also be useful for the accidental delete, I've done this repeatedly over the first month I've owned mine.

95% of the time I watch something, I respond Delete Now when it prompts at the end of the show. So, a few times when I actually wanted to keep it, I responded Delete Now, simply through habit.

A Recently Deleted folder would be quite handy.


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## dmdeane (Apr 17, 2000)

Fraser+Dief said:


> No, not quite. It would also be useful for the accidental delete, I've done this repeatedly over the first month I've owned mine.
> 
> 95% of the time I watch something, I respond Delete Now when it prompts at the end of the show. So, a few times when I actually wanted to keep it, I responded Delete Now, simply through habit.
> 
> A Recently Deleted folder would be quite handy.


Yes, I did the exact same thing (until I had multiple TiVos and larger hard drives). When you get in the habit of deleting a show after you have watched it, it is perilously easy to accidently delete a show out of habit after you have watched it, forgetting that you planned to save that particular show for some reason. I did this several times before I stopped deleting entirely. Having an undelete feature or recycle bin would have been nice to have.


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## dmdeane (Apr 17, 2000)

TiVoPhish said:


> LOL I'm the wife that WILL delete shows that go unwatched too long... hubby has learned that if he records something he better watch it within 2-3 weeks or I'm going to start bugging him about watching it so I can delete it. I have this "thing" about too much clutter on the TiVo, LOL


How can there be "clutter" on a TiVo? It's not like cleaning house; dust and grime does not build up if you don't "clean" every day. Why not trust TiVo to delete old shows when it needs the space? The whole idea of TiVo is to *decrease* your chores, not to increase them!

Hmmm. This must be one of those "things" which explains why I am still a batchelor!


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## Gregor (Feb 18, 2002)

Hmm, why not go buy a big disk and upgrade the Tivo?


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## Philly Bill (Oct 6, 2004)

Just get another TIVO. His & Hers...


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## Billy66 (Dec 15, 2003)

It's amazing that hackers on this site provide more of the no-brainer features that TiVo just simply will not. Do they really believe that more people want to watch shows on their PSP than want to undelete an accidental recording? It makes no sense whatsoever that they would hold back this very simple and wanted feature.

TiVoWeb has been out for several years and is way more powerful and useful than the geniuses at TiVo either can or will provide. If there is a valid reason not to provide it, I would love to hear it.


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## TiVoEvan74 (Sep 11, 2004)

Ah, but there can be clutter... we like deleting shows we've watched so that the only shows in the folders are unwatched ones! Otherwise, we'd be forever wondering--"Did we watch that already?" and having to start playing it to figure it out.

And, alas, for the suggestions of His and Her TiVos, the OP has exactly that, along with a husband who has a delete problem! So that doesn't solve things, either!

I hadn't heard before that TiVo had implemented an undelete just not released it. If true, they really should be ashamed of themselves. It's such a key missing and often requested feature. And would certainly help out lots of us who inadvertently delete shows. (For example, see another thread, where I discovered AFTER deleting a show that it hadn't transfered fully to the other TiVo (even though it showed that it had and had gone on to start transfering another show inthe queue). With undelete, I wouldn't have lost out on a show we really wanted to watch-- and we'd be back in business in no time!


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## dmdeane (Apr 17, 2000)

TiVoEvan74 said:


> Ah, but there can be clutter... we like deleting shows we've watched so that the only shows in the folders are unwatched ones! Otherwise, we'd be forever wondering--"Did we watch that already?" and having to start playing it to figure it out.


That's why you read the show description and the recording date; it's pretty simple to figure out whether you've watched it or not. I never get confused by the "clutter" in my TiVo folders; I simply scan for new recordings by their recording date. Of course, if TiVo added some kind of color shading (like on your web browser that shows you if you've clicked on the link recently or not) to indicate whether the show had been watched before or not, that might help. Add that idea to the list.


> I hadn't heard before that TiVo had implemented an undelete just not released it.


IIRC, several years ago someone posted some screen shots of possible "undelete" solutions but I don't remember the details. These were actual ideas TiVo did look into but decided not to implement for some reason.


> If true, they really should be ashamed of themselves. It's such a key missing and often requested feature. And would certainly help out lots of us who inadvertently delete shows. (For example, see another thread, where I discovered AFTER deleting a show that it hadn't transfered fully to the other TiVo (even though it showed that it had and had gone on to start transfering another show inthe queue). With undelete, I wouldn't have lost out on a show we really wanted to watch-- and we'd be back in business in no time!


Back when Firefly was first airing on Fox (burn in hell, Fox!) I was going to dump the episodes to tape after watching them, so as to share the show with a friend, but when the first episode aired (The Train Job) I watched it, and without thinking deleted it when it was over. D'oh! I really could have used undelete back then. I was careful not to make that mistake with the other Firefly episodes, but the damage was done. Once disk space ceased to be an issue to me, I simply stopped deleting anything.

I suspect we'll be seeing undelete eventually, either from TiVo or from the HME folks. I certainly hope so anyway.


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## TiVoEvan74 (Sep 11, 2004)

Really great idea... the shading if a show has been watched... would be a great visual. That way another viewer (he or she) would know whether deleting was in order or not.

Yeah, the recording date and the show description could work for telling if something had been watched before... but we watch a lot of different stuff and certainly don't pay any attention to the air date of what we've watched! And for several of the shows we record (Monarch of the Glen, Stargate, etc.) the descriptions are wrong anyway, so they cannot be trusted!

We run into the problem in spades on the DVD archives we have... have to use a stick 'em note and tick marks to know where we are... which of the 6 Numbers shows have we watched?

I feel your pain on the Firefly deletion... and agree with your shame on Fox! Have you seen the movie? We haven't so don't tell us if Spock dies or not, but did you like it?


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## mike3775 (Jan 3, 2003)

Just hook the Tivo into the home network and transfer all the shows to the PC. Thats what I do. Before I watch any shows, I transfer them to my PC. That way I can watch them and then delete them from my Tivo, but I still have the episode as well.


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## Billy66 (Dec 15, 2003)

Serenity was a good movie.

The idea of shading, marking or other ways to denote a show has been watched has been around as long as requests for undelete. A better solution is user icons that you could assign to certain family members. If there's a frog by it it means that I've watched it, a racecar my son has watched it etc....


The only difference is that this isn't a feature that the hackers provided several years ago so I'm willing to accept that it may be more complex. Undelete however has been done and provided through other means. TiVo is either too stupid to realize the feature is really wanted, or too lazy to implement it. I can't think of any other reason why it isn't there.

It's a sad and sorry shame that the hackers here are able to do more than the company itself. TiVo2go has been around now for a year or so and is still woefully inadequate when compared to Tytools. Am I supposed to believe that they are incapable? I can't, so I can only assume they are unwilling.


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## dmdeane (Apr 17, 2000)

TiVoEvan74 said:


> I feel your pain on the Firefly deletion... and agree with your shame on Fox! Have you seen the movie? We haven't so don't tell us if Spock dies or not, but did you like it?


I absolutely loved the Serenity movie. One of the best movies I watched last year; easily the best science fiction movie of last year. If you liked Firefly you'll love Serenity (except for that nagging feeling of loss about what "could have been" with the Firefly TV series).

You'll probably want to watch the Serenity DVD soon, though, before someone blabs or you accidently stumble upon a spoiler here or elsewhere on the web. Yes, "Spock(s) die(s)", so you'll want to see it as soon as you can before someone spoilerizes it for you.

As to undelete and other features....my hope is that TiVo opens up more and more TiVo functionality to the HME community, that way the "hackers" can develop their own HME applications that do everything we "power users" want, without intefering with TiVo's desire to keep the TiVo UI "simple" for new users. That's probably the excuse for TiVo not having undelete: they don't want to "confuse" new users. I think there's room to keep both newbies and power users happy, though. I hope TiVo understands this.


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## cwoody222 (Nov 13, 1999)

It's coming soon...

http://www.zatznotfunny.com/2006-01/tivo-readies-undelete-feature/


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## betts4 (Dec 27, 2005)

I am interested in this also. We are new to Tivo and I am a bit more versed then the Hubby is. However, he was anxious to watch the new Shield episode from last week. I was 'cleaning' the tivo out and deleting stuff and deleted that by mistake. He is not yet used to the 'real tv' time and tivo time. And that we don't need to worry about real tv anymore.

Now, I was deleting stuff becuase when I tried to extend a save time or program new stuff in, I kept getting a message that said something about the new thing overlapping an already scheduled program or if it were to be extended in its save time it would conflict with other programming. This confused me, because we did not have that many things saved or to watch....but I guess we did have a few on the 'to do' list. I just thought it would hold more before giving me that message.

Now, I DID have a couple that were KUID and I didn't know that was a bad thing. Until coming here and reading and learning. So my question is how long can something be saved till it is seen and even after that. How are things deleted? I am a bit confused about that. We have a 40hr memory that I will upgrade this summer. I am loving tivo and the freedom it gives us and the ability to catch shows I wouldn't normally get. 

I was happy to get the Quantum Leap marathon and then transferred it all to dvd. I was even happier that when while I was playing the show and recording it to dvd, tivo had gone ahead and recorded the new episode of the Shield for us! Yeah Tivo!!! I didn't know I could do both until I was doing it. Tivo is awesome!!!


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## JoeBarbs (Dec 1, 2003)

cwoody222 said:


> It's coming soon...
> 
> http://www.zatznotfunny.com/2006-01/tivo-readies-undelete-feature/


Looks good. Would look better if they used a trash can icon for the recently deleted.


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## Jonathan_S (Oct 23, 2001)

betts4 said:


> Now, I DID have a couple that were KUID and I didn't know that was a bad thing. Until coming here and reading and learning. So my question is how long can something be saved till it is seen and even after that. How are things deleted? I am a bit confused about that.


Well, having individual episodes more KUID is fine. It is just that the TiVo's scheduling engine gets cranky if you have many season passes (SPs) set to KUID (especially if they are in syndication and so many are going to be recorded).

This is because, as you may know, in addition to telling the TiVo never to delete that program, KUID also tells the TiVo must record this program. Take an extreme example, the Star Trek The Next Generation reruns on Spike, those are 3 hours a day, every weekday! If you have a SP set KUID, then in the ~12 days the TiVo can see forward it expects maybe 30 new hours of programming that it must record and cannot delete. 
Obviously that is going to put a squeeze on the available space. And if you know that you are actually going to delete them long before that, it just causes a bunch of warning messages, about shows that can't be recorded, even though you know there will be space when the time comes.

Moving on the the general question of when the TiVo will delete something. There are two things that can trigger the TiVo to delete a recording.
The first is if you have a Keep At Most (KAM) limit set for a SP. If you told the TiVo only record 5, then it will delete the oldest episode as necessary to keep to no more than 5.*

The other time the TiVo deletes items is when it runs out of disk space and something new is scheduled to record. At this point the TiVo will start deleting programs starting with whichever has been expired the longest. (If you haven't adjusted keep until dates, then this will be the oldest recording that isn't KUID). The TiVo should delete only as many programs as it thinks it needs in order to record the new scheduled programming.

This means that if your disk never gets full, and you never reach a KAM limit, the TiVo will never automatically delete a program, no matter how old it is. I have personally had programs that were not marked KUID that had been expired for over a year that the TiVo never deleted, because it never ran out of room. (Because I deleted most programs as soon as I watched them).

*There are some gottchas about this however, such as any changes to the recording options, or keep until date will cause that episode to no longer be considered part of the Season Pass, and it will no longer count toward and KAM limit.


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## ufo4sale (Apr 21, 2001)

How do we know that these photo's are real?


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

ufo4sale said:


> How do we know that these photo's are real?


Dave is usually accurate and would look for a hoax,
but there was no mention of where the photos came from and they obviously were doctored to put that big green new on them


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## akbar56 (Sep 6, 2003)

what I want to know is if this recently deleted feature is real, can we turn it off?

We already have a confirmation on delete, I do not need another one. I hate clutter on my tivo. I like it clean and streamlined.


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## HDTiVo (Nov 27, 2002)

JoeBarbs said:


> Looks good. Would look better if they used a trash can icon for the recently deleted.


Trash can icon belongs on all the TV shows.

Should use recycle bin instead. Then all the garbage you record will be recycled. Also Mac users can complain that TiVo is ignoring them.


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## ChuckyBox (Oct 3, 2005)

HDTiVo said:


> Trash can icon belongs on all the TV shows.
> 
> Should use recycle bin instead. Then all the garbage you record will be recycled. Also Mac users can complain that TiVo is ignoring them.


The problem with this forum is that you can't recommend posts. This was the funniest thing I've read here in a long time. Where is that :up: button?


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## davezatz (Apr 18, 2002)

ufo4sale said:


> How do we know that these photo's are real?


I have no reason to believe they are fabricated. However, I'm removing myself from the business of releasing photos/info from anonymous sources. Going forward, I will only be posting items I've seen first-hand or that have been provided by an identified TiVo employee.


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## dmdeane (Apr 17, 2000)

akbar56 said:


> what I want to know is if this recently deleted feature is real, can we turn it off?


When TiVo introduced folders, you had to go in and tell the software how you wanted to set up your folders, if you wanted to use the new features at all, so no one was suddenly disturbed with new things if they didn't want them.


> We already have a confirmation on delete, I do not need another one.


We get so used to that confirmation that we buzz right past it, thus end up deleting things when we did not intend to. See for instance my previous post about deleting a Firefly episode I was intending to save to tape for a friend. Besides, this isn't another confirmation; it's just a folder where the show goes after you delete it. No further nag screens and no further bother at all.


> I hate clutter on my tivo. I like it clean and streamlined.


I don't understand this "clutter" objection. Assuming these screenshots are accurate, all it is, is just another folder at the bottom of your Now Playing list. *One* extra folder. What clutter? The "clutter" of deleted shows is hidden from view inside the folder; you don't have to look if you don't want to. However, as noted above, if TiVo follows its past patterns in introducing new folder features, this will be an "opt in" feature you can utilize after the software upgrade; I doubt very much they will force you to use this new feature if you don't want to.

What would be nice is if we could set the duration for the "keep in the trash bin" folder option, ie, we could have TiVo delete the show right away, or keep it for 12 hours, or 24 or 48 hours, etc., depending on what kind of a "safety margin" we think we might need.

Edit to above: by which I mean, the deleted show would go to the trash folder, but not actually be overwritten by new shows until a specified period of time had passed, that we could manually set, ie, overwrite after 1 hour or 12 hours or 24 hours, etc.


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

davezatz said:


> I have no reason to believe they are fabricated. However, I'm removing myself from the business of releasing photos/info from anonymous sources. Going forward, I will only be posting items I've seen first-hand or that have been provided by an identified TiVo employee.


Thanks Dave, putting up TiVo info like you do on your site is a great way to have all the info easily accessible in one spot. Filtering out things that may not be accurate or may not see the light of day is important for us readers of the site so we can feel what we read is reliable. You took the right step in taking it down.


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## TiVoEvan74 (Sep 11, 2004)

Another caveat or clarification about the following:

"Moving on the the general question of when the TiVo will delete something. There are two things that can trigger the TiVo to delete a recording.
The first is if you have a Keep At Most (KAM) limit set for a SP. If you told the TiVo only record 5, then it will delete the oldest episode as necessary to keep to no more than 5."

If your SP is Keep Until I Delete, it will stop recording after 5, not delete the oldest episode.

Also, as pointed out, if you change the keep flag, you can keep recording new ones. For example, we have BBC News scheduled to Keep At Most 1 show and to permit deleting. It will write over the slot each day, so there is at most 1 show on the TiVo. Well, if one shows up that we want to save, we simply change it to Keep Until I delete. Even though KAM is set to only 1, it will still record each night, even though there is already one BBC News on the TiVo.

It's a great feature, actually.

By the way, save for recurring news shows, virtually all of our SPs are Keep Until I Delete... but then we don't have full, regular cable where there are marathon repeats being shown (which could be handled in any case, if one only wants to watch new shows or is willing to manually delete various shows they don't want).


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## mrjam2jab (Jul 23, 2004)

dmdeane said:


> I don't understand this "clutter" objection. Assuming these screenshots are accurate, all it is, is just another folder at the bottom of your Now Playing list. *One* extra folder. What clutter? The "clutter" of deleted shows is hidden from view inside the folder; you don't have to look if you don't want to. However, as noted above, if TiVo follows its past patterns in introducing new folder features, this will be an "opt in" feature you can utilize after the software upgrade; I doubt very much they will force you to use this new feature if you don't want to.
> 
> What would be nice is if we could set the duration for the "keep in the trash bin" folder option, ie, we could have TiVo delete the show right away, or keep it for 12 hours, or 24 or 48 hours, etc., depending on what kind of a "safety margin" we think we might need.


"One extra folder".....funny that...how many have added folders cuz their PC shows up on the NPL? Wanted that one. Had to have that one.....but a Recently Deleted folder is considered clutter???


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## aztivo (Feb 23, 2005)

how about something where you could go in and mark multiple shows for delete, I know this is something the wife and I have wanted at different points in our own tivos


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## newsposter (Aug 18, 2002)

If any of you have a sony tivo, this may come in handy short term to undelete 

Here's the keystrokes I used on my sat-t60:
1 go to now playing list
2 Select show and start watching
3 Anytime in show hit List on remote (goes to now playing list)
4 delete show just watched
5 Press Guide button to go to live TV with channel list displayed
6 press Guide again to clear channel list
7 press display to bring up channel banner
8 down arrow to the bottom icon that is the message waiting icon
9 hit select (goes to messages screen, mine currently displays no messages)
10 left arrow from here as if going to a previous menu
11 deleted show now starts playing at point list was hit in step 3

I've repeated this multiple times on my unit with various shows. I did notice that it is specific to hitting the guide button and not the Live TV button in step 5. The Live TV button appears to clear the show from whatever buffer its in.

Also this only works if you just deleted it, not at another later time. Sorry


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## TiVoEvan74 (Sep 11, 2004)

pretty cool work around for the SONY TiVo... anyone know of a trick like that for TiVo?


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