How do you move a file to the trash with ONE keystroke (Can't believe I'm wasting time on this!)

Question

How do you move a file to the trash with ONE keystroke (Can't believe I'm wasting time on this!)

Everytime I want to send a file to the trash, I have to either perform some kind of key combination/shortcut or use the trackpad/mouse, right click and select "move to trash", or drag the file(s) to the trash! This is absolutely ridiculous. Why can't I just press the delete button??? I cannot take it anymore! It's such a waste of time.

After some research, I finally found a post with the answer I was looking for from user par larsson

Re: How delete a file in mac os x?

"You can also go into System Preferences and make a new keyboard shortcut. I turned one of the function keys into a "Move To Trash" key.

1. No need to use the mouse for something that should be simple and quick.

2. Single button press just like in Windows."

Seriously!

Now the problem is how do you do this?

1. I went to the system prefs > Keyboard > Keyboard and checked "use F1, F2, etc... as standard function keys.."

2. Under keyboard shortcuts, I selected "Application Shortcuts" and clicked on the "+" sign

3. I selected the finder application, entered "Move To Trash" in the action box, and F12 as the key (because it's next to "delete")

That did not work. It just opened the dashboard instead.

4. I went back to "keyboard shortcuts" and found F12 was already assigned to open the dashboard. So I unchecked it and tried again.

That still didn't work. I would select the file to be moved to trash, press F12, and after an error "beep" sound, the last file in the folder was highlighted.

MacBook Pro (Retina, Mid 2012), OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.5)

Posted on Jan 10, 2014 5:06 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

BobHarris

Level 9

55,109 points

Jan 10, 2014 8:53 PM in response to chillesennogada

Worked for me, except I choose F10 as it was not already assigned to something else. I was just experimenting and did not feel like messing up the default settings.

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Answer 2

Jan 10, 2014 9:15 PM in response to BobHarris

Thanks for your post. I gave it a shot but unfortunately, it still doesn't work. There is one thing that doesn't look right: there is no check box next to the shortcut I created... I don't know. Will keep trying!

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Answer 3

Eric Root

Level 10

684,603 points

Jan 11, 2014 10:05 AM in response to chillesennogada

Did you relaunch Finder? According to this Apple support article you need to quit the application for the change to take effect.

Keyboard Shortcuts - Create

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Answer 4

Jan 12, 2014 9:01 PM in response to Eric Root

Unfortunately, that is one the things I tried since my last post, and it didn't work.

I also tried to:

log out, log back in => 😟
restart my computer => 😟
Delete the shortcut and re-create it using the F10 key, as someone suggested in another discussion => 😢
Relaunch the finder, log out - log in, restart my computer with F10 => :-t

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Answer 5

BobHarris

Level 9

55,109 points

Jan 13, 2014 1:07 PM in response to chillesennogada

This does work, so there must be something different about your Mac setup than from mine.

The first thing I want to ask: "Move To Trash" the exact wording in the Finder -> File menu? That is to say, if your language set so that "Move To Trash" is displayed in the menu. If you have different wording, then this might explain the problem.

Also did you use "Move To Trash" with a Capital "To" or is is "Move to Trash" with a lower case "to"?

When I tried it with "To", it did NOT work.

If that does not change anything, then I would boot in "Safe Mode", just in case there is a 3rd party extension interfering. Reboot and hold the "Shift" key during boot. Safe Mode should prevent 3rd party extensions from running.

Failing all that, you might just consider something like BetterTouchTool

<http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/32953/bettertouchtool>

which has its own HotKey support, so you can associate any HotKey you want with Command-Delete. And BetterTouchTool gives you the ability to add more gesture support to a Trackpad or Magic Mouse.

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Answer 6

Jan 14, 2014 11:20 PM in response to BobHarris

Duuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuude!!!!!!!!!!!! YOU DID IT! I cannot believe it!

I changed "Move To Trash" to "Move to Trash" and selected a file. I had lost all hope, so I took a minute to prepare myself for yet another moment of deep frustration. Then I pressed F10, and bang! the file was trashed!!! It took me a couple minutes to actually believe what just happened. Thank you so much! If I could, I would "like" you as many times as I can physically hit the "Liked" button!

PS: what the heck is wrong with Apple though??? Wrong instructions, incorrect help instructions on their own site. The chances of figuring this out before having a nervous breakdown were like one in a million (approximately, I did not actually do the math). Last week, the keyboard and the trackpad stopped responding on my brand new macbook pro for a couple hours. I was not the only one with this problem. Apparently, this was from a design flaw, which means it could happen again at any time. iMovie doesn't work. TextEdit keeps crashing all the time. Emptying the trash can take hours.

Since 2000, I bought a PMac G4 Quicksilver, a used PMac G3 Blue, a used iBook G4, a used Pismo PBook G3, a used Graphite iMac G4, a used iMac G3 (green, 233MHz I think) and I already had more problems with this brand new macbook pro than will all the other macs combined... For such an expensive machine, with 16GB of RAM, that's a little dissapointing, especially from Apple. Maybe I'm just not lucky.

Anyways, thanks again! Best moment of 2014!

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Answer 7

Jan 23, 2014 7:51 AM in response to chillesennogada

I just did this. Thank you SO much!

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Answer 8

Apr 20, 2015 10:18 AM in response to chillesennogada

To set the Forward Delete key to delete a file in Finder, open a Terminal window and type:

defaults write com.apple.finder NSUserKeyEquivalents '{"Move to Trash"="\U007F";}'

killall -KILL Finder

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Answer 9

Jul 17, 2015 9:51 AM in response to ishmael1856

ishmael's solution seems like the easiest here. Thanks.

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Answer 10

darelldd

Level 1

10 points

Aug 28, 2015 5:17 PM in response to ishmael1856

Fantastic. Thanks Ishmael1856. If only all my issues could be solved so elegantly.

For the record, I should mention that I tried the shortcut route. And I got it to work with F10 just fine. But it won't work with F12 as others have found. And that's a deal breaker. If I have to look at the keyboard to find the thing, I might as well use the mouse. Thanks to EVERYBODY for their work, and for sharing publicly.

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Answer 11

Oct 13, 2015 8:57 AM in response to ishmael1856

I typed that in but delete does not work and now I have two options for Move to Trash in my finder file menu.

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Answer 12

BobHarris

Level 9

55,109 points

Oct 13, 2015 11:23 AM in response to sgessler85

Mine says Command-Delete

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Answer 13

Oct 29, 2015 10:10 AM in response to ishmael1856

Hi Ishmael,

thanks for the post, it worked like a charm. Unfortunately, I have realized that it also trashes the file when you use forward delete while in editing mode on the file name. This was unexpected, and I think I'd prefer to go back to the original setup. Is there a magical line to type into Terminal to reverse this tweak? Thank you.

Anna

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Answer 14

premant

Level 1

0 points

Dec 22, 2015 11:55 AM in response to Anna in Istanbul

I changed to Move to Trash with f10 amazing why it worked just because of the to

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Answer 15

lmilne

Level 1

9 points

Apr 2, 2016 8:54 AM in response to BobHarris

Thanks, BobHarris. Like chillesennogada, I've been frustrated with this complication for years. Command-Delete works as easily as Delete as far as I'm concerned.

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