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Does emptying or secure emptying the trash actually free up hard drive space? Or is emptying the trash a useless waste of time?
Thanks
iMac, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.2), (Late 2009 Model)
It free's up space. Not a waste of time.
When you put something in the trash, you are actually putting a pointer to the file in a special directory. So, putting a file in the trash doesn't delete the file but moves the pointer. When you empty the trash, you actually delete the file.
Uh...emptying the OS X trash can does, in fact, free up hard drive space!
This is far from a waste of time.
If you are just dumping files into the OS X trash icon is like filling up a trash basket, but never emptying it.
So, files build up in the trash, still taking up space until you actually empty it off of the hard drive.
Does emptying trash free up hard drive space?
