How to Empty the Trash on a MacBook Air

The Trash bin on your MacBook Air is where a lot of your files go when you delete them.

This may seem to be unproductive, as the files are still on your computer, but having this additional step before you permanently delete files from your laptop can save you some headaches if you inadvertently move some files to the trash that you actually need.

But eventually, you might start running out of storage space, and the files that are in your Trash could be using a lot of that space.

So once you are certain that the files in your trash are ones that you will not need again in the future, you can follow these steps to empty the trash on your MacBook.

How to Delete the Items in the Trash on a MacBook Air

The steps below were performed on a MacBook Air in macOS 10.12.3. Once you complete these steps all of the items in your trash will be deleted permanently.

Step 1: Double-click the Trash icon in your dock.

open your macbook air trash

Step 2: Click the Empty button.

how to delete all the items in the macbook air trash

Step 3: Click the Empty Trash button to permanently delete the files in your trash.

how to empty the trash on a macbook air

Note that you can also empty your trash in another way. Locate the Trash icon again.

how to delete all items in macbook air trash

Then hold down the control key on your keyboard, click the Trash icon, then click the Empty Trash button.

empty the trash on your macbook air

Click the Empty Trash button again to confirm that you want to empty the files in the trash on your MacBook Air.

can i delete all items in the trash on my macbook air

Now that you know how to empty the trash on a MacBook Air, you can follow these steps anytime that you would like to free up the space being used by those trashed items.

Emptying the trash on your computer is a good way to free up some storage space, but there are a number of other places where you can delete files that you don’t need any more. Learn more about removing junk files from a MacBook Air and see how you can free up additional GB of space that you can use for other files.

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