The MacBookas a general rule, do not have a great SSD storagesince we will have to pay a fairly high extra cost for this, which is why we usually have space problems, especially if we download large games or movies.
It is true that, once we do not need it, we usually delete it, and this is where many make the mistake, thinking that their Mac works in a similar way to the iPhone, and that everything we delete is gone permanently and frees up space on the disk, when this is not the case.
How to properly delete files on Mac
For permanently delete a file On iPhone, we don't have to do anything, because after 30 days, it will be gone forever and we won't be able to restore it. However, it is something that, on Mac, is not configured, even though we can do it as we will see today.
Many people, after deleting several files, continue browsing as if nothing had happened, however, the Mac space will be the same, because despite being in the trash, these will never be deleted, only if we do it manually, something that we can also forget.
That is why it will be necessary to activate the same mechanism that iPhones have, and that, every 30 daysthere is a deep cleaning, thus ensuring that these are gone forever. It is true that we can do it manually, however, it has two problems. The first is that, possibly, we want them to be there for a few days, in case we regret it or we have accidentally deleted it, and second, that if we leave them, we will end up forgetting and when we look at the trash, there may still be files from many months ago, taking up GBs of data space that we need on the disk.
How to activate automatic trash deletion
To do this we will follow some very simple steps. As we said, natively, it will be deactivated, so we will have to do the following to activate it correctly:
- Open Finder: Click the Finder icon in the Dock (the one with the smiley face).
- Access Finder preferences: From the top menu bar, select Finder and then click Preferences.
- Activate automatic deletion: In the preferences window that opens, select the tab Advanced. There you will see an option that says “Delete items from Trash after 30 days”. Activate this box.
Ready, from now on, all the elements will be kept, for security, 30 days in the trash, being able to restore them. However, once that time has passed, they will be deleted forever, recovering space on the storage disk.
You can also delete it manually, whenever you want, if you are clear that you are not going to want to recover them at any time, being able to free up that space sooner.
And you, did you have this option active? Do you check your trash from time to time? The truth is that I am quite clueless, and the last time I looked at it without this active, it had hundreds of GBs in it, however, since I put it in, I at least make sure that, even though I forget, it will recover the space after a month, something that has helped me a lot to make my Mac lighter and always have available storage.
