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How to Permanently Delete Files From An External Hard Drive?

How to permanently delete files from an external hard drive without moving the files to the computer's trash?

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iBoysoft author Eudora Liu

Eudora Liu

Answered on Tuesday, December 3, 2024

If you don't want to permanently delete files from your external hard drive by moving them to Trash, you can try the following two methods.

Method 1: Using the keyboard shortcut. If you want to permanently delete files on Mac without moving them to Trash, you can select them and press Command + Option + Delete.

Method 2: Reformat your external hard drive. The easiest way to delete your files without moving them to Trash is to format your external hard drive. Here's how:

  1. Connect your external hard drive to your Mac.
  2. Go to Finder > Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility. (Or you can go to Launchpad > Other > Disk Utility.)
  3. Select your drive and then click Erase in the toolbar.
  4. Edit a new name for your drive and choose a format.
  5. Click Erase to start the process.

If you accidentally permanently delete your essential files, you can use iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac to help you restore them, which is a powerful and professional data recovery tool to help you recover kinds of files on Mac/MacBook. It supports macOS SonomamacOS Ventura, etc., and Apple Silicon.

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