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macos - Permanently deleting files on Mac OS


A while back, as relatively new Mac OS X user, I was surprised to learn that you cannot easily delete files. Directly, that is, without moving them to the trash first. On Windows and Linux this can obviously be done with ease, but not so on the Mac.


I noticed this when trying clear up files from a USB memory stick — removing the files ("move to trash") does not free up space; that happens only after emptying the whole system-wide Trash. Not particularly convenient! (It seems stupid to have to empty the whole trashcan just to make some space on the USB stick. There might be gigabytes of stuff in there, and this sort of defeats its purpose - what if you'd actually need to restore something from the trash some day.)


So, what's your way of getting around this? Have you bought a 3rd party application like RAW Trash for $16.95 just to delete files, or do you diligently empty the trashcan whenever needed? Or did I miss something? Also, can you convince me that this is actually the way it should be — that users shouldn't be able to fiddle with the filesystem easily? :)



Answer



I'm not so happy with the way Mac OS X handles this either. If I really want to delete something, especially from USB memory sticks, I usually fire up Terminal and rm the files manually.


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