How to Empty a Flash Drive

Advances in technology have led to flash drives with increasingly large memory sizes. With USB flash drive sizes in excess of 32 GB, it might seem nearly impossible to fill them up. Smaller sized drives, however, can fill up quite quickly. Regardless of the size of the flash drive, there nearly always comes a time to get rid of the data contained on it. You can easily empty a flash drive by following a few simple steps.

Instructions

1. Insert the flash drive into an empty USB port on your computer. Use caution when inserting the drive, and make certain you have it positioned correctly.

2. 

   Click once on the "Open folder" options on the AutoPlay pop up window. If the AutoPlay window fails to launch, then right click once on the Windows "Start" button and select the Explore" option.

3. 

   Make sure the flash drive is highlighted in the "Folders" section of the window. This will allow you to make certain all of the folders and files are available to delete.

4. 

   Select all of the material on the drive by clicking once on the first file or folder listed and once on the last file or folder listed while holding down the shift key. You will notice that all of the folders and files will be highlighted.

5. 

   Press the "Delete" (Del) key once. Click once on the "Yes" button on the pop up window asking if you are certain you want to delete the selected items.

6. Note that the flash drive has been emptied of all data.