4.3 Delete

To delete a file in GQview press Control + D, or select Delete from the file menu. Delete is also available in the context menu of all images and files. If Enable delete key is enabled in Options, pressing the Delete key can also be used to delete files.

The behavior when starting a delete operation depends on the Confirm file delete option in Options. If the option is enabled a dialog will appear to confirm the operation, if it is not enabled the files will be deleted without further interaction. In all cases if the file is unable to be deleted you will be notified by a dialog.

Confirm delete dialog

The dialog that appears when delete confirmation is enabled will show the file or files to be deleted. To delete the file press Enter or activate the Delete button. Pressing Escape or activating the Cancel button will close the dialog and abort the operation.

When deleting multiple files, the dialog will include two arrow buttons to step the image preview through the list of files to be deleted. Initially the preview will be blank, activate the right arrow to display the first file.

The dialog will also display the status of the Safe Delete feature. Use this to determine if a file to be Deleted will be immediately lost, or if the file can possibly be recovered from the Safe Delete folder.

If a file is unable to be deleted, a dialog will appear to notify you. If multiple files were selected and any remain, the dialog will include a Continue button, activating this button or pressing Enter will delete the remaining files. Pressing Escape or activating the Cancel button will close the dialog and the remaining files will not be deleted.

Safe Delete

GQview includes a feature to temporarily store deleted files in a selected folder, to use this feature enable Safe Delete on the advanced tab of the preferences dialog. Safe Delete includes these options:

Folder: The folder to use for temporarily retaining deleted files.

Maximum size: The maximum amount of disk space to use when storing deleted files, in megabytes.

When the total size of the deleted files stored in the Safe Delete folder exceeds the Maximum size, the oldest files are removed from the folder to make space for the new deleted files. Files moved to the Safe Delete folder are prefixed with a six digit number in the format:

nnnnnn_FILENAME

This is used to distinguish which files to remove first when clearing space for new files. The digit counter increments with each deleted file.

To clear the contents of the Safe Delete folder, activate the Clear button provided for this purpose on the Advanced tab in Options.