How to delete files (skip the trash)?

[CaptSaltyJack]

In Windows, you can shift+delete a file and it will skip the trash and be removed permanently. Surely there's some kind of shortcut key for that in Mac, but I can't figure it out. What is it?

 

[NanoBite]

To send something to the Trash:

Command + Delete

To empty the Trash:

Shift + Command + Delete

You will see a text box asking if you really want to perform this action so just hit Enter.

 

[CaptSaltyJack]

Yeah. Unfortunately neither of those does what I want.. I simply want to permanently remove one file. (what if I want to remove blahblah.mp3 but don't want to empty the whole trash?)

There must be some way to do this other than going into Terminal & doing "rm -f <filename>"

 

[NanoBite]

Shred files with an Applescript droplet

 

[CaptSaltyJack]

That'll do! Not a keyboard shortcut, but it'll do..thanks!

 

[NanoBite]

Glad to help out Cap'n.

 

[Sachsr1]

if you use quicksilver they is a way to keybind apple scripts

 

[walkerj]

Not to be geeky or anything, but...

When I want to delete a file with extreme predjudice I fire up Terminal.app and to a rm -f filename

That will skip the whole trash thing. It'll also often take care of issues where you can't empty the trash because Finder thinks the file is being used or some other bogus thing like that.

 

[andrebnu]

i did not understand how this whole droplet thing works...

could someone please elaborate on that? any pictures?

 

[NanoBite]

i did not understand how this whole droplet thing works...

could someone please elaborate on that? any pictures?

This Droplet sits on your Desktop or Dock and when you drag a file/s over it it prompts you to allow it to permanently shred the file immediately.

I've attached an image of the process.

A droplet is basically an AppleScript that has it's own icon and is activated when you drag things onto it.

If you look at Post #4 above ^^ and click on the link there, you should see a link to a .zip file of the droplet that you can download. When the download completes, click on the .zip folder and the droplet is launched. It's now ready for use and you can store it wherever suits you.

 

[andrebnu]

wow!

now I got it!! thank you very much!