Can I delete from SD card without emptying trash?

On Mountain Lion is it possible to delete from an SD card without emptying the trash on my MacBook Pro?

You could reformat the card instead

You can in Terminal. cd to /Volumes/nameofSDcard
Type: rm filename
Be very careful what you delete.

Thanks Cradom. But I don't understand why Mac makes you go through all this. I see you went back to Snow Leopard. Is it the same on that OS?

It's the same no matter the version of OS. Putting stuff in the trash on an external drive requires emptying the trash to delete it, which empties all the trash on all connected drives.
I THINK there's a hotkey combo which lets you immediately delete a file without putting it in the trash but my old brain can't remember right now.
(EDIT) Can't find it, maybe you'll have better luck? OS X keyboard shortcuts

And the same with Windows also. Regardless if external hard drive, USB thumb drive or SD card.

But I don't understand why Mac makes you go through all this.

Click to expand...

Windows works exactly the same way. An external drive must be attached before you can empty the recycle bin from items you deleted on the drive. So what's the difference?

need to learn

cradom said:

You can in Terminal. cd to /Volumes/nameofSDcard
Type: rm filename
Be very careful what you delete.

Click to expand...

Sorry cradom, I'm new to terminal and I was unsuccessful in deleting the files. I typed in
cd to /Volumes/nameofSDcard (I put the name in) but that gave errors

then I typed in
/Volumes/nameofSDcard (followed by) rm filename (entered one filename)

Once I open terminal, exactly what all do I have to type in?

Read ALL of this through first and then do it step by step.

Type & enter
Tip: You can type cd /Vo, hit tab to have it autocomplete to /Volumes/, type the first few letters of your sd card name and hit tab again to autocomplete.

Spaces need to be preceded by a backslash.
Example:
Delete the .Trashes folder on the SD card, copy/paste and & enter. Needs admin password.

Make a .Trashes file that cannot store deleted files , copy/paste & enter

Now when you delete a file, it will be gone forever on the spot.
If you reformat the card, you will have to do this over though.

Thanks for the help!

Johnny Calvara said:

Thanks Cradom. But I don't understand why Mac makes you go through all this.

Click to expand...

I think it's because the user has to give the instructions. If it were possible to do what you're asking for, then each and every time you went to empty anything from the trash, you'd have to specify exactly what you wanted to go. It think you'd find that to be more of a pain than the way it is.

One alternative is to clear out your trash of other things before you toss anything from the SD card, whether that means moving them back onto the Desktop temporarily or whatever. Then when you delete from the card, you can empty everything and put the other things back in the trash. (I guess I'm assuming that the issue you have with it is that you are holding things in the trash that you're not quite sure you want to be irretrievable yet.)

I suppose, especially with a novice like me, Apple often knows best....
Thanks for the reply toMACsh