Force Trash To Empty

J

jaredbkt

Registered
There is an item in my Trash can that I cannot seem to get rid of. It says the icon is locked...but when I pull up the info, it's not. I've tried holding down OPTION while emptying the trash but that doesn't work either.

Any idea on how to finally get rid of this beast? Thanks.
 
Try via terminal:

sudo -s
type root password
cd .Trash
rm -Rf *


In this way, it should work.
 
Be very careful when executing the last command - make sure you're in /Users/yourusername /.Trash before you run it! If you accidentally run it in, say, "/", you won't be very happy... (it'll attempt to erase everything on your system)

Ian
 
It's giving you that error because rm isn't finding anything to remove. if there is just one file that you need to remove type "sudo rm " (make sure you have the last space in there) and then drag the file from the trash into the terminal window. The entire path to the file should show up. hit enter and it should delete. If it's a directory type "sudo rm -r " and it will do the same thing.
 
I have the same problem ... it says it didn't find a match... but there are like 25 things in the trash ... and I would definatley like to get rid of them
 
I would like to add that OS X implements the lock bit differently than Mac OS 9 or earlier.

In MacOS a locked file means the contents of that file are locked. You can move the file or rename the file, but you can't delete or overwrite the file.

In OS X a locked file behaves like an immutable file in UNIX which was created for some arcane reason. An immutable file can't be moved or renamed, but it's host directory can be moved or renamed. In other words the OS X behavior is insane. You can change the path to the immutable file by changing the name or location of it's host directory, but you can't change it by renaming or moving the file. The end result is if you move a folder containing an immutable file into the Trash, you're kinda screwed.

It's really stupid and I wish more people would tell Apple they prefer the MacOS 9 behavior where you can move and rename a locked file. The OS X behavior doesn't make any sense.
 
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