Introduction: Now, let’s take a look at how we can delete files and folders on the Mac. Let’s go to my Mac.

Location of Trash on the Mac: Now, we already know that our trash is located on the lower right-hand side of our dock. Again, if you’re coming from Windows, this is your ‘Recycle Bin.’ To delete anything on your Mac, what you need to do is you need to throw it in the trash here. Let’s go and open up a new finder window, ‘Command-N,’ and now, let’s say I wanted to throw these two installers away. To do that, all I have to do is drag them to the trash. What I’m going to do is I’m going to select both of them. I use the trackpad, and I select both of them, and now, all I do is drag them down to the trash, and I threw them away.

Using a Key Command to throw a file or folder away: There is also a key command for this. Let’s take a look at this ‘Wildlife.’ I want to throw this away. I click on it to select it, I only click on it once and now what I do is I use ‘Command-Delete,’ I hold down the command key and the delete key. You can see that by going up to ‘File’ in the menu bar, you’ll see ‘Move To Trash,’ which I can use or ‘Command-Delete.’ Now, let’s command-delete, and it moved it into the trash. Let’s go over to my downloads folder if you have a file in a folder in the dock. I have this file here. I want to throw it away. All I have to do is click and drag and place it in the trash.

Viewing and recovering items that have been thrown away: Now, if we want to see what is in the trash, we have to click on it and open it up. Now, I can see everything that is in my trash. If I want to recover any of them, all I do is drag it out of the trash and place it in the folder that I want. When I scroll up here and let’s say I wanted to save ‘Permute 3’, I select this and drag it out of the trash and place it in the folder that I want.

Emptying the Trash: When you throw something in the trash, it’s almost like just throwing it in the trash in your house. You can always go through that trash to recover it. Eventually, what you want to do is you want to empty that trash, just like in your house when it gets too full, what you’ll want to do is you’ll want to empty it. When you empty your trash, you are not going to be able to recover anything, so it’s a permanent deletion. To empty the trash, what we do is go up to ‘Finder’ in the menu bar; this is part of the finder, and then you’re going to see ‘Empty Trash.’ I can also click and hold on the trash here, and you’re going to see ‘Empty Trash.’ Now, when I empty the trash, it does delete everything permanently. You want to make sure that you do not wish to recover anything when you empty the trash.

That’s how we throw our files and folders away on the Mac.