Using The Trash




Topic 8: Using the Trash

Now that you know how to save things to a diskette for safekeeping, it seems only fair that you should learn how to throw things away. Throwing away documents, applications, or folders full of documents and applications on the Macintosh means using the Trash. In this excersize we will throw away the document "my name".

Here is how to Throw away a Document:

Note the procedure is the same when you want to throw away a folder or application.

Drag the "my name" document over the Trash. icon at the bottom right of the screen. When the Trash icon highlights, release the mouse button to drop the document into the Trash.

The Trash icon "gets fat" to indicate that there's something inside.

It may happen that you accidently throw away something you really wanted to keep, No problem! If you catch your mistake quickly, you'll be able to retrieve what you have thrown away.

Here is how to Retrieve documents from the Trash:

Open the Trash by double-clicking on its icon.

The Trash window contains the document you just threw away.


To retrieve an item from the Trash, simply drag it out of the Trash window back to where it came from, in this case your diskette.

Any document, folder, or application you throw into the Trash remains there until you: (1) eject the diskette it came from, (2) choose Empty Trash from the Special Menu.



Here is how to Empty the Trash:

Click anywhere on the desktop to ensure you have the original desktop menus.

Choose Empty Trash from the Special Menu.



The following dialog box should appear:



We want to empty the Trash so click on OK.

In a few seconds the "my name" document will disappear from the Trash window. Observe that the Trash window now contains 0 items.



Close the Trash window by clicking in its close box.

You have now successfully thrown away the "my name" document.

Click on one of the following, to continue the tutorial:

Next Topic: Ejecting Your Diskette
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