all my documents wont open, it says they are in the trash

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all my documents wont open, it says they are in the trash

I imported documents from an external hard drive, so they all went on my desk top. then I moved each document where I wanted it to go in application and created folders to each. to get rid of all the icons on the desktop, i put them in the trash. now when I try to open one of those documents in my folders in applications, it says its in the trash. what do I do so I can open a document but so that theyare still in folders and not all over my desktop?

MacBook Pro

Posted on Jun 7, 2012 10:08 PM

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Answer 1

X423424X

Level 6

14,265 points

Jun 7, 2012 10:26 PM in response to aklaura83

First of all get them out of the trash.

I am not sure what you did to move them but I suspect you created aliases instead of moving them. Just left click, keeping the mouse button down, to drag an item from one place to another.

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Answer 2

aklaura83 Author

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Jun 7, 2012 10:42 PM in response to X423424X

I just got this mac, so things are new to me - one thing is, that when I open applications, it says "trash" at the top of certain folders. these are replicated in the trash. however, if I drag that document to the desktop, I can open it, and it looks like it is not in the trash anymore. My goal is to have all my documents in folders (which I did initially) and be able to open them without dragging to desktop each time. I tried moving docs from trash to desktop and that did not fix the problem either. Thank you, any other ideas to solve this? thanks!

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Answer 3

X423424X

Level 6

14,265 points

Jun 7, 2012 10:48 PM in response to aklaura83

I think you need to read some of the mac 101 articles. For example,

Mac 101: The Finder

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Answer 4

aklaura83 Author

Level 1

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Jun 7, 2012 11:39 PM in response to X423424X

ok, this is what I did - I moved all the items from folders I had created to the "Documents" folder. now I can open these files. However, all of the original folders I created state "trash" at the top of them, and I want to get rid of those and make new folders to partition all of my files into (again!)

**note if I create a new folder and transfer a file from documents into this file, it will open as per usual. ** this is super confusing to me.

so to sum up my main ne w issue is : how do I delete folders I dont want anymore? I tried draggin to trash, and that did not work. thank you so much!

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Answer 5

X423424X

Level 6

14,265 points

Jun 7, 2012 11:54 PM in response to aklaura83

I have no idea what you are talking about when you say all your folders had "trash" at the top of them unless you mean this:

If that is the case those folders are already in the trash.

Dragging to the trash is how you trash items. Then you empty the trash to remove them permanently.

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