Sunday 20 September 2015

How to Permanently Delete a File/Folder in OS X Yosemite

It's been a long time since I have posted something due to my busy schedule. I wanted to let you guys know that I have bought a new Macbook Pro 13-inch with Retina Display and it's my first ever Macbook (even though I have Apple products like iPad, and iPod). All my previous posts mostly were focussed on Windows. So, today I thought to post something about Apple's new OS X Yosemite (version: 10.10.5).  

I was going through all the functions/commands of OS X Yosemite and found several features just opposite to Windows. I wanted to delete a file/folder completely from my system by bypassing the Trash but there was no option unlike in Windows OS where we can permanently delete a file/folder by pressing Shift+Del key and then pressing Enter key or by using mouse. 

In Apple that's not the case, as a user first needs to delete a file/folder by moving it to Trash, and then secondly going to Trash (Recycle Bin in terms of Windows OS) and then emptying the Trash.

So, it takes a bit more time to delete any file/folder permanently from Apple's OS X. I was going through several blogs/forums/websites/video tutorials and I found one method at present that I like the most. 

Which method then?

  • Open Terminal Emulator. How? Open your Launchpad and then search for 'Terminal', open it when you find it.  
  • Type "rm" then drag and drop the file into Terminal to fill in the full file path, then hit enter.
  • You can also do "sudo rm" if it whines about permissions. If it's a folder, you'll have to use "rm -r" to recursively delete everything inside the folder.
      Note: "rm" means to "remove".

                                                 Step 1: Type rm (for file in my case)


                           Step 2: Drag and drop the file into Terminal (desktop in my case)



Trivedia: By Amish Trivedi
 Website: www.trivedia.in

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