Most of the time when we delete something from our computer, it goes into the trash or recycle bin. This is where it will stay until you manually empty it. However, did you know that until you empty it out, the deleted items still take up disk storage space on your computer? This is why it’s important to empty it out every now and then.
If you’re using a Mac computer, there’s actually a pretty simple way of automatically emptying out the trash on a scheduled-basis, and here’s what you need to do to set it up.
How to empty trash on Mac every 30 days
- On Finder on your Mac, choose Finder > Preferences and then click Advanced
- Select “Remove items from the Trash after 30 days.”
- Repeat the steps above if you’d like to go back to manual mode
Note that the wording can be interpreted in a couple of ways, where it would suggest that the trash is emptied out every 30 days. However, this isn’t the case. What this really means is that whenever you delete an item and it goes into your trash can, it will only be removed from the trash can 30 days after it was initially deleted.
We should also point out that regardless of your preferences or settings, items in your trash that were put there after being deleted from iCloud Drive will be automatically emptied after 30 days. The steps we mentioned above to set up a schedule only work with local files stored on your computer.
This means pretty much for all things you delete that goes into the trash, you have a 30 day window in which you can choose to restore the item in case you have had a change of heart.
How to restore items from trash on Mac
In case there was an item that you might have mistakenly deleted, it’s quite a simple process of putting it back and restoring it. However, this only works if the item is still in your trash, but if it has been deleted permanently from the trash, you’re pretty much out of luck save for restoring a previously backed up Mac.
- Click the Trash icon in your Dock
- Drag the item out of Trash onto the desktop, or select the item and go to File > Put Back in which the file will then be restored to its original location
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