When I delete something off a flash drive, I simply drag and drop it into the trash. It seems to remove it from my flash drive, but in reality it doesn’t. The file is still present taking up space, it just doesn’t show up. If I empty the trash while the flash drive is connected however, it does delete everything. Why is this? I only recently found this out by mistake. Is there a way to truly delete something off a flash drive the first time around or do I simply have to empty the trash can every time.
— matt
That's how the Trash works. You put something in there to "mark it" for deletion. Then you empty the trash to truly delete it. It is a fail-safe. Without it, it would be too easy to permanently delete files.