Is Trash auto-delete on by default on a Mac?

No. You turn it on in Finder › Settings › Advanced or with Empty Trash Automatically in Storage settings. iCloud Drive items are the exception and are always emptied after 30 days.

Can I change 30 days to a different number?

No. macOS offers only the 30-day option. To empty sooner, choose Finder › Empty Trash, or Control-click an item in the Trash and choose Delete Immediately.

How do I stop the Empty Trash warning?

Hold Option when you choose Empty Trash to skip it once, or turn off the warning in Finder › Settings › Advanced.

Quick answer

Does a Mac empty the Trash automatically?

By Vishva Variya · Updated November 7, 2026

Short answer

Only if you turn it on. In Finder, choose Finder › Settings, click Advanced and select “Remove items from the Trash after 30 days”. The one exception is iCloud Drive: Apple says items moved to the Trash from iCloud Drive are emptied after 30 days regardless of Finder settings.

How to do it

1Click Finder in the Dock, then choose Finder › Settings.
2Click Advanced.
3Select “Remove items from the Trash after 30 days”.

Two places to turn it on

Finder › Settings › Advanced has the checkbox “Remove items from the Trash after 30 days”.

Apple menu › System Settings › General › Storage has the same thing as a recommendation, Empty Trash Automatically, which erases items that have been in the Trash for more than 30 days. Turning on either one sets the same option.

What happens to those items

Items removed automatically are permanently deleted, the same as emptying the Trash yourself. Apple says the only way to get them back is a Time Machine backup or another backup.

Until the 30 days are up, select an item in the Trash and choose File › Put Back to return it to where it was.

The iCloud Drive exception

Anything you delete from iCloud Drive is emptied from the Trash after 30 days whether or not the Finder option is on. After that, Apple points to iCloud.com for recovering iCloud data.

Folders involved

~/.Trash

Where Peekaboo fits

macOS can empty the Trash after 30 days and remove some caches when space is low, but it doesn’t clear old downloads, screenshots or duplicates. Peekaboo’s Routines do those on a schedule you write as a sentence, like “every Friday, move screenshots older than 30 days to the Trash”. Routines stay off until you set one up, every run goes to the Trash rather than straight to deletion, and each one is recorded in Activity with Put Back.

Questions

Is Trash auto-delete on by default on a Mac?: No. You turn it on in Finder › Settings › Advanced or with Empty Trash Automatically in Storage settings. iCloud Drive items are the exception and are always emptied after 30 days.
Can I change 30 days to a different number?: No. macOS offers only the 30-day option. To empty sooner, choose Finder › Empty Trash, or Control-click an item in the Trash and choose Delete Immediately.
How do I stop the Empty Trash warning?: Hold Option when you choose Empty Trash to skip it once, or turn off the warning in Finder › Settings › Advanced.