There is only one way PhotoELF will permanently remove a photo from your hard drive, and that is if it first passes through the ShoeBox, (see exception below).

Every once in a while, you should look in the file menu of PhotoELF and select Open ShoeBox. There you can browse through your deleted photos to determine if you want to permanently remove all or just some of them. Photos that you want to keep can be moved to an appropriate folder.

You may even use the Slide Show Function under the view menu to browse automatically.

If you want to delete all the photos in the ShoeBox, go to the File menu,and click Empty ShoeBox. All Photos will then be permanently removed from your hard drive. 

Exception:
PhotoELF will never delete a photo that is marked as READ-ONLY, without prompting you first.  When the Empty ShoeBox function is launched, you will be prompted with the results.  If there were no files marked as READ-ONLY, all files will be deleted.  Otherwise, the READ-ONLY files will be preserved.  If you still want to remove these files, you will need to change them to READ/WRITE.  Look in the edit menu to change a file from READ-ONLY to READ/WRITE.

Setting the Warning

You can set this limit by going into Options, Preferences Or just click the hammer on the toolbar.


Exception to the Rule:

PhotoELF will never permanently delete an image or file without first passing it through the ShoeBox.

However, there is one exception to this rule.

You may permanently delete a file or files by doing the following:

Hold the [Ctrl]-[Alt] keys down and then right click the image window or thumbnail window. This method will permanently delete the file or files and by-pass the ShoeBox.

History of the ShoeBox

The person would then go home & sort through the photos. On average, out of a roll of 24 pictures, about two photos would end up in a book called a photo album. The remaining 22 photos would end up in a box that at one time contained a new pair of shoes. It is hard to throw away pictures, even if they are blurry, eyes are closed, or one of the subjects in the photo put rabbit’s ears behind whoever was standing next to them when the shutter snapped; especially, after paying $15 - $30 to have the film developed.

This shoe box would fill up until the corners were breaking open and the lid would not close. Duct tape was usually applied to keep it from exploding. This shoe box would end up in the back of a closet, basement or attic, only to be found years later by the grandchildren, who could not figure out why there was a box full of blurry pictures. 

With PhotoELF’s ShoeBox you still have the chance to discard the photos, but you can recover them later should you change your mind. However, it is a good idea to occasionally clean out the ShoeBox so your grandchildren do not have to go through your blurry photos, and your computer hard drive can recover the space.