# Main > Technical Support and Notices >  How do you permanently delete a file?

## swiss

When I go to My Settings > Attachments, I am able to delete files BUT when I go to add a file to a new thread, I can see files that I have deleted in the past. So it seems they are deleted from showing in Attachments, but still on the site somewhere because I can see them when I go to add new files. So how do I delete them so they don't appear anywhere?

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## Redrobes

I think, though I am not absolutely sure about this, that if you delete an attachment then after a while they will get deleted. On my manage attachments it says:

"Uploads not utilized within one hour will be deleted"

I would imagine that as part of the vbulletin software it looks for all attachments that are unused and then gets rid of them and this script runs every few hours. If the attachment is in your list of them then it could be that it is being used in a post or it could be that it was once used in a post and maybe once used it is marked and it wont get deleted. I am not certain about much of this.

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