Trash in Google Drive

Note: You can only trash items that you own. For items you don’t own, click More > Remove to take them out of your Google Drive, but not remove them for everyone else.

Google Drive Trash Can

Your trash is never automatically emptied, so you’ll probably want to clean it out once in a while. Items in your Trash still count toward your storage quota, so this helps free up some space. To clean it out:

• In the Trash view, click Empty trash to permanently delete everything.
  
•  Or, check individual items and click Delete forever.
  Tip: Notice that after you select items in the trash, you can also choose to restore them from the More actions menu.

Steps to delete files to Trash in Google Drive:

1. Click on Recent in the left column.  Scroll to find a file that has been shared with you.  
2. Single click the file.  
3. Click on More actions at the top right of the page and select Make a copy.
4. Click on the Remove/Trash Can button toward the top of the page.  Because this file is shared with you and owned by someone else, it is now deleted from your records forever.
5. Click on Recent in the left column.  Scroll to find the copied file.
6. Click on the Remove/Trash Can button toward the top of the page.  This sends the item to the deleted folder.
7. Click on Trash in the left column.  
8. Scroll to find the copied file and select it.  
9. At the top of the page, click on Restore.  This sends it back to its original location.
10. Click again on Recent in the left column.  Scroll to find the file and select it again. 
11. Click on the Remove/Trash Can button toward the top of the page.  
12. Click on Trash in the left column.  
13. Scroll to find the file and select it. 
14. This time click on Delete Forever.  The file is now gone completely.