The Real Way to Delete Files on Your Mac
By blurrypixel
@blurrypixel (35)
United States
June 21, 2009 10:23am CST
Do you think just dragging your files to the trash can and emptying it is really deleting your files? It isn't! What its doing is basically smashing them down to take up less room on your hard drive. Think of a can of soda. If you step on it, it's still there, just taking up less room in the recycling bin.
Here's a way to get ALL your space back on your hard drive.
Open up Terminal
Type sudo rm -R
(MAKE SURE THAT YOU LEAVE A SPACE AFTER THE "R")
Now open up trash, select all and drag them into your terminal window. You will see all the files being listed in the terminal window. When its done, it may ask you for your Mac password. Type it and hit enter, and your files are permanently gone giving you every last drop of your space back.
Warning: You will never be able to recover those files so make sure you really want them gone
1 response
@Redhornet117 (1248)
• Philippines
21 Jun 09
That's cool. How do you that for the Windows PC? I mean delete doesn't mean delete to in windows. Even files emptied from the recycle bin can be recovered too. Do you know how to really delete the files in windows PC as well?