In Drupal, files can be uploaded to the site for users to view or download. This can be easily achieved by creating a file or image field on content types.

In the back end, a list of all the files uploaded can be viewed by the administrator, by going to Administration > Content > Files (admin/content/files).

Files uploaded can be easily removed from the individual content pages (see the image below), but removing them entirely from the system is another story. You might be surprised that you cannot find a button, a link or an option to remove these deleted files entirely from the system.

After deleting files on content, if you go to the Files (admin/content/files) page, you will find the deleted files are still there, and the status still shows ‘Permanent’, even though they are already removed from the nodes. It seems very confusing. Removing files from content and removing files from the system are two different things in Drupal.

To remove files from the system, we need to add the file delete function. This can be achieved by installing the File Delete module.