<page xmlns="http://projectmallard.org/1.0/"
      type="topic" style="task"
      id="privacy-purge">

  <info>
    <link type="guide" xref="privacy"/>
    <link type="guide" xref="files#more-file-tasks"/>

    <revision pkgversion="3.10" date="2013-09-29" status="review"/>
    <revision pkgversion="3.12" date="2014-03-23" status="candidate"/>
    <revision pkgversion="3.14" date="2014-10-12" status="candidate"/>
    <revision pkgversion="3.18" date="2015-09-30" status="candidate"/>

    <credit type="author">
      <name>Jim Campbell</name>
      <email>jwcampbell@gmail.com</email>
    </credit>
    <credit type="editor">
      <name>Michael Hill</name>
      <email>mdhillca@gmail.com</email>
    </credit>
    <credit type="editor">
      <name>Shaun McCance</name>
      <email>mdhillca@gmail.com</email>
      <years>2015</years>
    </credit>

    <include href="legal.xml" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2001/XInclude"/>

    <desc>Set how often your trash and temporary files will be cleared
    from your computer.</desc>
  </info>

  <title>Purge trash &amp; temporary files</title>

  <p>Clearing out your trash and temporary files removes
  unwanted and unneeded files from your computer, and also frees up more
  space on your hard drive. You can manually empty your trash and clear
  your temporary files, but you can also set your computer to automatically
  do this for you.</p>

  <p>Temporary files are files created automatically by applications in the
  background. They can increase performance by providing a copy of data that
  was downloaded or computed.</p>

  <steps>
    <title>Automatically empty your trash and clear temporary files</title>
    <item>
      <p>Open the <gui xref="shell-introduction#activities">Activities</gui> overview and
      start typing <gui>Privacy</gui>.</p>
    </item>
    <item>
      <p>Click on <gui>Privacy</gui> to open the panel.</p>
    </item>
    <item>
      <p>Select <gui>Purge Trash &amp; Temporary Files</gui>.</p>
    </item>
    <item>
      <p>Set one or both of the <gui>Automatically empty Trash</gui> or
      <gui>Automatically purge Temporary Files</gui> switches to
      <gui>ON</gui>.</p>
    </item>
    <item>
      <p>Set how often you would like your <em>Trash</em>  and
      <em>Temporary Files</em> to be purged by changing the
      <gui>Purge After</gui> value.</p>
    </item>
    <item>
      <p>Use the <gui>Empty Trash</gui> or <gui>Purge Temporary Files</gui>
      buttons to perform these actions immediately.</p>
    </item>
  </steps>

  <note style="tip">
    <p>You can delete files immediately and permanently without using the Trash.
    See <link xref="files-delete#permanent"/> for information.</p>
  </note>

</page>
