Turn off the empty-Trash warning on Mac

If you've decided you never want to see the empty-Trash confirmation again, it's a single checkbox in Finder's settings — and once it's off, it stays off. The setting is saved with your user account, survives restarts and macOS updates, and can be switched back on the same way the day you change your mind. Here's how to disable it permanently, confirm it took, and reverse it later.

Uncheck it in Finder's Advanced settings

This is the permanent, no-Terminal way:

1. Click the desktop or a Finder window so Finder is the frontmost app.
2. Choose Finder → Settings from the menu bar, or press Cmd+,.
3. Click the Advanced tab.
4. Untick Show warning before emptying the Trash.

Close the window — there's no Save button, the change applies the moment you uncheck it. It behaves identically on macOS 13 Ventura, 14 Sonoma, and 15 Sequoia.

Confirm it stuck

Because the warning is now gone, the only way to test it is to empty the Trash and watch nothing pop up. Put a throwaway file in the Trash, choose Finder → Empty Trash (or press Shift+Cmd+Delete), and it should clear with no dialog. That confirms the setting is live and will keep behaving this way on every future empty — you won't need to set it again after a reboot or an update.

The Terminal equivalent

The checkbox writes one preference value, which you can set directly if you're scripting a setup or applying it to several Macs:

# Disable the empty-Trash warning permanently
defaults write com.apple.finder WarnOnEmptyTrash -bool false
killall Finder

Both routes change the same setting, so use whichever you prefer — the checkbox and the command are interchangeable.

Turn it back on any time

Nothing here is one-way. To restore the confirmation, re-tick Show warning before emptying the Trash in Finder → Settings → Advanced, or run the opposite command:

# Bring the warning back
defaults write com.apple.finder WarnOnEmptyTrash -bool true
killall Finder

And even while the warning is off, you haven't lost your safety margin: deleted files still sit in the Trash until you empty it, and you can Put Back anything from there. Turning off the warning only removes the confirmation click, not the Trash itself.

How "permanent" this setting really is

It helps to know where the change lives, so you know what will and won't affect it:

• It's saved with your user account, in Finder's own preferences, not in a document or a spot that gets wiped by ordinary use. Restarts, sleep, and macOS updates all leave it alone.
• It's per-Mac and per-account. The setting doesn't travel over iCloud, so turning it off on one Mac won't change another, and each user account on a shared Mac has its own copy — one person disabling the warning doesn't disable it for everyone.
• The only things that reset it are deliberate: re-ticking the box, running the "true" command above, or erasing and reinstalling the Mac. It won't quietly switch itself back on.

So "permanent" here means exactly that — set it once and it stays until you choose otherwise — while still being a single checkbox away from reversal. That combination, genuinely persistent but never locked in, is what makes it safe to turn off without a second thought.

While you're in the Advanced tab

The same panel holds a setting that reduces how often you empty at all. See how to auto-empty the Trash on Mac to clear old items automatically after 30 days.