A special folder in the Macintosh operating system where deleted files are sent when the user sends the command to delete them They reside in the trash can until the user gives the command to permanently erase them, thus giving the user the chance to recover any information accidentally deleted
A trash can is a large round container which people put their rubbish in and which is usually kept outside their house. = garbage can. a large container with a lid into which you put empty bottles, used papers, food that has gone bad etc British Equivalent: dustbin
an icon labeled file on the Mac desktop having the appearance of a trash can for the purpose of deleting data Items dragged to the trash can are not disposed of until you use the "empty trash" command Even so, for security purposes, no file is irreversibly deleted until something causes the hard drive to overwrite the actual sectors where it is written Trashing something merely assigns the written area of the storage medium to allow overwriting either by further normal usage or by using a formatting utility or other program to erase the drive or specific portions of it