Delete/Backspace now deletes the layer I'm on instead of clearing it

[gaïa_7851]

Hi,

I've been using Photoshop fore more than six years now for drawing.

One feature I use a lot is to hit Delete on my keyboard to clear a layer's content without deleting the layer itself. Or, rather, I should say I used to do this, because the same key now deletes the layer, unless I select All (Ctrl+A) then Backspace/Delete, then again Deselect (Ctrl+D). This is very annoying.

Now, I tried everything I could to try and revert it back to what it once was: uninstalled Photoshop, tried older versions, newer ones, tried setting Delete as the Clear shortcut (Delete/Backspace can't be used for shortcuts, so no, didn't work). At some point, I even got a weirder bug where Delete filled my selections with my seconday color.

Yes, I'm doing this on a raster layer that is not a background layer. Yes, I've created an auto-action that does this. No, I don't want to settle for this solution if reverting back to the old way Delete was working is possible.

Excuse my tone, I've been trying and failing to fix this for the better part of my day.

Thank you. 🙂

[M-H]

Do you mean deleting the layer content so its just all transparent or filling the layer with foregroun/background colour so it looks like "blank page" as there is major difference between the 2. If there is no selection, Delete was always deleting selected layer, ctrl + del = fill with background colour, alt + del = fill with foreground colour. With active selection exact same things happen just within the selection. So maybe you were just hitting "fill with white" before?

[gaïa_7851]

Hi! Thanks for answering.

No, I'm talking about filling with transparency. I have seen some forum answers (Reddit, if my memory serves me correctly) saying this is a recent change (2023), and it's true that I had been using an older version of Photoshop for quite some time, before making the update to the 2025 version.

I might be imagining the option to hit Delete to clear (fill with transparency) layers having ever existed, but I find odd that I mechanically reach for this key when wanting to do this, and having seen some other posts relating to this online, well... a collective hallucination isn't first in my list of leads lol.

I'm slowly starting to fear there's no way to change it the way I want...

[D Fosse]

I can't recall if it was any different in the past, but the key is whether you have a selection active or not. If you hit ctrl+A to Select All, then Delete will delete the layer content. Without the selection, it deletes the whole layer.

If you ask me, this seems perfectly logical and intuitive.

On a Background layer, however, the rules are different. It cannot have transparency, so it brings up a dialog asking what you want to fill with. Transparency is not an option.

EDIT come to think of it, it has to work this way and be tied to a selection. What if you have a partial selection on the layer? Should it delete everything?

[gaïa_7851]

Thanks for answering!

Yes, it works as you described on my end. That's what I did for my new auto-action.

Having any kind of selection deletes the content of the selection for me, not the layer.

Since everything but this works normally, I'm currently thinking of 2 options: either I made that up (TVPaint and Clip Studio have this feature), or this is the result of an oldish update. Not looking good for me either way, so I'm gonna go with the auto-action, but I hope this post might give the Adobe team some ideas, like a way to toggle it on/off.

[gaïa_7851 · Accepted solution]

Update: figured out that I probably confused my Clip Studio Paint/TVPaint shortcuts with Photoshop's, since both enable you to clear a layer with the Delete key (not Backspace for TVPaint, Backspace deletes the layer).

To clear a layer (make all of its content transparent) in one click in Photoshop, just set an auto-action that selects everything (Ctrl+A), deletes (Delete/Backspace) then clears the selection (Ctrl+D).

This is not my favorite way to do this, as I like my shortcuts to be the same across different softwares, but it does the trick.