I've read the ways this should be able to work, but none have worked of me.
APPLE just get this done; add Delete to a file within the app Preview. Why make us jump through hoops. If you're concerned about us accidentally dumping a file just add the "Are you Sure?"
If anyone knows how to do this without converting it to a PDF please let us know.
Mac Studio, macOS 15.1
OutsideShooter wrote:
... add Delete to a file within the app Preview. Why make us jump through hoops. If you're concerned about us accidentally dumping a file just add the "Are you Sure?"
If anyone knows how to do this without converting it to a PDF please let us know.
I don't know of any app like Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Pages, Keynote, Numbers, Textedit, Adobe Acrobat, other PDF editors ... etc. ... that can delete a file from within the app. Why not just go to Finder and delete the file? Two clicks ...
You can submit feedback to Apple to add this feature but this is the first time I have ever heard of anyone requesting it. Apple might listen if scores of such requests came in, but this seems like sort of an obscure (and not common) request for a feature.
OutsideShooter wrote:
... add Delete to a file within the app Preview. Why make us jump through hoops. If you're concerned about us accidentally dumping a file just add the "Are you Sure?"
If anyone knows how to do this without converting it to a PDF please let us know.
I don't know of any app like Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Pages, Keynote, Numbers, Textedit, Adobe Acrobat, other PDF editors ... etc. ... that can delete a file from within the app. Why not just go to Finder and delete the file? Two clicks ...
You can submit feedback to Apple to add this feature but this is the first time I have ever heard of anyone requesting it. Apple might listen if scores of such requests came in, but this seems like sort of an obscure (and not common) request for a feature.
As I mentioned before, you cannot delete a file from Preview, or any other app other than the Finder. Nothing is "forever stuck" in Preview. If you download a file from the web to "view something", it will remain on your Mac until you delete it in the Finder.
Barney-15E wrote:
If you are talking about deleting the content of the PDF, Apple would have to license the PDF specification from Adobe to allow editing of the PDF. I don't know if Adobe would even do so. That would crack into their Acrobat income stream.
PDF is an international standard (ISO 32000-2), with vendor-specific extensions.
Once you buy a copy of the ISO 32000-2 standard itself, there aren’t additional licenses.
Adobe may well license some or all of their extensions to PDF, I’ve not checked.
As for workarounds, maybe ask the upstream app not to create the file? Or create the PDF where it’ll get deleted by some subsequent local processing? Or depending on how Preview is getting launched, wrap Preview in a local script that deletes the file at exit.
I’ve met very few GUI file-related apps that can or do delete the files they act upon, too.
The only GUI tools I’ve met that offer this file deletion are purpose-dedicated file-transfer tools.
Log your feedback with Apple.
FWIW, I don't think he/she wants to work with PDFs seeing they said " without creating a PDF?". I think they want to delete a file directly from Preview. Which you can't do with PDFs either. Beats me.
Apple is not here. Feel free to send feedback.
OutsideShooter wrote:
Yup you are correct.
Usually. 😎
As I mentioned you can always ask Apple from the Feedback page. I wouldn't hold my breath however.
If you are talking about deleting the content of the PDF, Apple would have to license the PDF specification from Adobe to allow editing of the PDF. I don't know if Adobe would even do so. That would crack into their Acrobat income stream.
Steve, 2 clicks? Please explain.
Because I can't recall where I put that file, from a few months ago, let alone several years ago. I don't in most cases really care to file it at all. I just want to view something from a search I did online and then it is forever stuck in Preview. Once read I'm done with it, but then I close Preview because I didn't purposefully save it at all and it remains as a permanent headstone for what reason? At the very least give me the option, then, to Save or not, within Preview like Adobe or Affinity apps, like Word and Excel do, if I'm not mistaken.
At the very least give me the option, then, to Save or not, within Preview like Adobe or Affinity apps, like Word and Excel do, if I'm not mistaken.
That already exists. There really isn't anything different about Preview document handling than most any other app.
You can also do it from the file title:
Please explain in some detail why you think they are "forever stuck" as I cannot see any way any of my PDFs in Preview are in any way "stuck."
If you are receiving the files from the web, then they are normally downloaded to the downloads folder.
If you are opening the PDF in Safari, then clicking on the button to open in Preview, they go to Documents in iCloud for me. If iCloud syncing isn't turned on, they are likely in your Documents folder.
Your answer is exactly why I am asking for a workaround. I know this and as I stated before, I don't intentionally save much of what I want to view. So I cannot find it to delete it. I'm not Mr Organized. Those off us who live in this space want it easy to delete immediately after viewing it or upon closing the Preview app, and it would be easy to ask upon closing, "Do you want to save this file?" No would delete it or a File> Delete would also. Making this consistently aware matter to be dealt with and hopefully changed, is another good reason for bringing this up
But thanks
If you know of very few that allow delete, then it's about time they started writing code to do that. What's the definition of insanity? I bring this up because one shouldn't have to bang one's head more than once.
Yes asking the upstream source, would be a solution, but since most don't offer the ask, why not just give in to need for the user of the Preview app? File> Delete
They are forever stuck in Preview until one learns how to delete them as a workaround, which you did for me.
That's very helpful. Thank you Barney
Editing this thank you a bit. I just tried it on a png file. 'Revert to...' is showing no actions available, so perhaps your workaround works on certain files and not others? I'll find out as I will try several on my next wandering through Preview files I want to delete.
And I tried these :
Delete a page from a PDF: Choose View > Thumbnails or View > Contact Sheet, select the page or pages to delete, then press the Delete key on your keyboard (or choose Edit > Delete).
They didn't work, nor could I revert it to a pdf. If I had been able to, then perhaps 'Revert to', may have worked. It would just be so simple if the code was written to File> Delete
…or upon closing the Preview app, and it would be easy to ask upon closing, "Do you want to save this file?" No would delete it or a File> Delete would also. Making this consistently aware matter to be dealt with and hopefully changed, is another good reason for bringing this up
Barney-15E wrote:
…or upon closing the Preview app, and it would be easy to ask upon closing, "Do you want to save this file?" No would delete it or a File> Delete would also. Making this consistently aware matter to be dealt with and hopefully changed, is another good reason for bringing this up
https://discussions.apple.com/content/attachment/fd401fa6-4c85-4b80-ae2d-51b8375d8909
Or, click the red dot before quitting Preview.
How do I delete from Preview without creating a PDF?
