Clean up your Rubbish
Mac Tip#33/12-Dec-2001

In the bottom right hand corner of your screen is a Trash basket. Update for Mac OS X: the Trash is now at the right-hand end of the Dock. It appears at the bottom if the Dock is vertical.

The Trash does two important jobs for you: it helps you dispose of documents and software you no longer need and it helps you eject CDs, floppy discs and other removable media such as Zip discs or Thumb Drives from your computer. This dual purpose can be alarming for new users.

Soon we’ll look at ejecting discs, but for this Tip let’s focus on disposing of documents.

Suppose you’ve created a document you don’t need any more — perhaps a letter which has served its purpose, or a drawing you’ve done, or perhaps it’s an email attachment you received but don’t need to keep. I have one called MyTest.

Just go to the Finder and open your folders until you find the document. I’ve found MyTest in my Documents folder. Now I click on MyTest and either drag it into the Trash or press Command-Delete. (Remember, the Command key is the Apple key).

When you drag something to the Trash the trick is to wait until the Trash icon is highlighted before you let go of the document. If you use the Command-Delete method (only works with the latest operating systems) it’s much easier.

You’ll now see the Trash will fill with ‘crumpled paper’.

Unfortunately that hasn’t removed your document from the computer. Well, actually, that’s a good thing if you made a mistake. In that case you can just double-click the Trash, like you would your Hard Drive and drag the document out again.

Next week’s tip will look at emptying the Trash and why that means your document isn’t really gone.