{"id":69448,"date":"2017-09-18T15:02:07","date_gmt":"2017-09-18T22:02:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.intego.com\/mac-security-blog\/?p=69448"},"modified":"2017-09-18T15:02:07","modified_gmt":"2017-09-18T22:02:07","slug":"power-tips-for-efficiently-using-the-trash-in-macos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.intego.com\/mac-security-blog\/power-tips-for-efficiently-using-the-trash-in-macos\/","title":{"rendered":"Power Tips for Efficiently Using the Trash in macOS"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"macOS<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve always felt that the concept of the Trash on the Mac, or the Windows Recycle Bin, is one of the great inventions in computing. Prior to this, deleting files\u00a0was all done via text commands, or by selecting files in a list, and\u00a0you could still type the wrong file name or select the wrong file. It was easy to make mistakes and get rid of files that you didn\u2019t mean to delete.<\/p>\n

The Trash on a Mac is a sort of buffer. You move files there, but still have a chance to say Oops! You can delete the Trash immediately after you\u2019ve placed a file there, or at the end of the day, or the end of the week. You don\u2019t need<\/em> to ever delete the files, unless you\u2019re running out of space on your drive.<\/p>\n

In this article, I\u2019ll give you some power tips for using the Trash. I\u2019ll tell you how to quickly delete files with keyboard shortcuts, how to recover files from the Trash, how to have your Mac automatically empty the Trash, and how to securely delete files so no one can recover them.<\/p>\n

Moving Files to the Trash<\/h3>\n

Moving files to the Trash is easy: just drag them to the Trash icon in the Dock. If you\u2019ve been using the Mac for a while, you may remember when the Trash icon was on the Desktop, but it being in the Dock means you never have to move windows to find it. You can drag one file or many to that icon and they get placed in the Trash.<\/p>\n

You can also move files to the Trash from the keyboard. Select one or more files, then press Command-Delete.<\/p>\n

Recovering Files from the Trash<\/h3>\n

If you\u2019ve accidentally put some files in the Trash that you want to keep, you can just drag them back to the window or folder where they were. And if you want to recover the last file(s) you moved to the Trash, you can press Command-Z while in the Finder; this is the Undo command, which undoes your previous Move to Trash command. Or you can press Command-Delete; while you may expect this to delete the files, it does the opposite, undoing your original deletion.<\/p>\n

You can also right-click an item and choose Put Back. The Finder will put it back where it was before you put it in the Trash. This is useful if you are no longer viewing the folder where the item was located.<\/p>\n

Note that some apps send files to the Trash; this may occur if, for example, you delete files in iTunes. The only way to recover these is to do so manually. The Undo and Put Back commands don\u2019t work, because it wasn\u2019t the Finder that sent the files to the Trash.<\/p>\n

Emptying the Trash<\/h3>\n

You can empty the trash in several ways.<\/p>\n