How to Delete Multiple Files and/or Folders at One Time

How do I delete two or three files at one time?

by Doug Updated September 3, 2010

Delete Multiple Items pop-up confirmation box.

Early today, I received an email from my Grandma who will turn 90 years old in just a few months asking me the following question: "How do I delete two or three files at one time?" In order to answer this somewhat complicated process and make it understandable for those like my Grandmother who may not yet be completely computer savvy, here's what told her to do...

To delete mulitple files and/or folders on your Windows computer do the following:

Locate the files you would like to delete on your computer. Then on the keyboard, press and hold down the 'Shift' key.
Keep holding down the 'Shift' key, and use the left mouse button and left-click on each file/folder you would like to delete. The files and/ or folders should now be highlighted.
While the files/folders are hightlighted, click the Right mouse button. This will bring up a pop-up Properties menu box. In the box, find the "Delete" menu and then click on "Delete".
A 'Delete Multiple Items' pop-up box will come up asking you "Are you sure you want to move these items to the Recycle Bin?". You will want to click on the "Yes" button to delete the files/or folders.
That's it!

There are other ways to delete multiple files at once, but I thought that this would be the simplest to explain and understand for someone like my Grandmother who is trying to delete multiple files for the first time.

Hopefully, I didn't confuse her too much!

2 Comments

by Holding Shift Key ? on 8/1/2010 Don't you mean control key ?
by Doug on 8/1/2010 Appreciate, the heads up on the Ctrl key vs. Shift key. On a Windows computer, the Control key does work a little bit better in most situations when you want to select multiple files and/ or folders individually. However, the Shift key is useful when you want to select a group of files and/ or folders quickly as a group (although it's a little more akward than using the Control key). For instance, if you hold down the Shift key and click on the first file or/ folder in a directory, and then Shift+click on the last file or folder in the directory, you will have just selected all the files and folders in the directory with just two clicks. You can't do that using the Ctrl+key method, since it only selects one file or folder at a time. At any rate, there's various ways to accomplish pretty much the same task, just sometimes it might take a little longer. In this case, either the Control key or Shift key can be used to select multiple files and folders.

by Holding Shift Key ? on 8/1/2010

Don't you mean control key ?

by Doug on 8/1/2010

Appreciate, the heads up on the Ctrl key vs. Shift key. On a Windows computer, the Control key does work a little bit better in most situations when you want to select multiple files and/ or folders individually. However, the Shift key is useful when you want to select a group of files and/ or folders quickly as a group (although it's a little more akward than using the Control key). For instance, if you hold down the Shift key and click on the first file or/ folder in a directory, and then Shift+click on the last file or folder in the directory, you will have just selected all the files and folders in the directory with just two clicks. You can't do that using the Ctrl+key method, since it only selects one file or folder at a time.

At any rate, there's various ways to accomplish pretty much the same task, just sometimes it might take a little longer. In this case, either the Control key or Shift key can be used to select multiple files and folders.

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How to Delete Multiple Files and/or Folders at One Time

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