MacOS Finder – Trashing .Trash and Emptying Trash on Mac

findermacmacostrash

I don't want to sound stupid, but what happens if someone were to delete the .Trash folder using Finder and emptied it.

I know it's possible unless there is something that just stops it from happening.

  1. defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles YES; killall finder can be used to show the folder.
  2. Then go to ~/ in finder and delete .Trash.
  3. Open trash from dock then empty it.

What would happen?

Best Answer

Quick answer, nothing happens.

If you delete it, .Trash will be created again once needed. You can delete it without issues, no matter if you delete from Finder or from command line (rm) will back again.