OS X El Capitan: How to delete files immediately

OS X El Capitan has some great new features, but one of them hasn’t gotten much attention. It’s now possible to immediately delete files from your Mac instead of putting them in the Trash.

In this tip I’ll show you how easy and fast it is to delete files immediately in OS X El Capitan via the Finder. And you can also immediately delete a file if it is already in your Trash.

How to immediately delete a file in the Finder

Just follow these steps to immediately delete a file in the Finder in OS X El Capitan:

1. Open a Finder window.

2. Select the file you want to immediately delete.

3. Hold down the Option key on your keyboard.

4. Click on the File menu at the top of your screen.

5. Click on Delete Immediately.

6. A confirmation box will appear asking if you want to delete the file and reminding you that the deletion cannot be undone.

After you click Delete on the confirmation box, your file will be immediately deleted instead of being put into the Trash.

Note that you can also use this keyboard command if you prefer it to using the File menu: 

Option-Command-Delete

You’ll still need to confirm the deletion, but the keyboard command might better if you’re someone that hates futzing with menus. 

How to immediately delete a single file in the Trash

It’s now also possible to immediately delete a single file if it’s already in the Trash. Just follow these steps to do it:

1. Open the Trash.

2. Select the file you want to immediately delete.

3. Right-click the file.

4. Click on Delete Immediately.

5. The delete confirmation box will appear and you can click Delete to remove your file.

And that’s all you need to do to immediately delete a file from your Trash in OS X El Capitan.

OS X El Capitan keeps surprising with helpful features

I was very happy to discover that OS X El Capitan can immediately delete files. It’s one of those subtle but highly useful features that you almost never hear about when such an update is announced by Apple. And that’s partly the fault of those of us in the media since immediately deleting a file is not as sexy a feature as Picture in Picture or Split View.

But when you get right down to it, it’s sometimes the smaller features that really hit the sweet spot for many users. And being able to immediately delete a file in OS X El Capitan is definitely one of those. It will certainly come in handy for the folks that upgrade to the latest release of Apple’s operating system.

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