OS X V10.7 Lion :: Can't Empty Trash And Icon Never Indicates Files Are In Trash
May 1, 2012
Despite having several files in the trash, its icon never changes (always shows an empty trash) and the "Empty Trash" option is dimmed (that is, cannot be used). OnyX ws the only solution but it's temporary. What's the fix I should apply to Mac OS X? Also, why is it that every time I want to move a file to trash I must enter my password? It's annoying to say the least.Please help me as I don't want to go through the royal pains of installing everything again, Windows-style. I think Mac OS X should be better than that.
Info:
MacBook Pro (17-inch Late 2011), Mac OS X (10.7.3)
My 24" iMac (2.4 Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo, running OSX 10.6.1) crashed during a normal shutdown sequence and had to be closed down by holding in the power button. This resulted in three zero kB alias files with random names such as "." in the trash.
I cannot empty these files from the trash by any normal means and the trash icon permanently shows full. The files can be selected but cannot be dragged to the desktop or renamed. Other files put in the trash can be deleted normally.
I have two folders in my trash which I cannot empty. No matter how many times I try these folders will not go away. I have open the "info" link and marked them read and write without success.
I moved a bunch of files to the trash can after installing Snow Leopard, mainly backup files from OmniFocus.
I clicked Secure Empty Trash and over 500,000 items began deleting. These 500,000+ items deleted at the rate of 2-3 items a second. This would total 138 hours equaling over 5 days to Secure Empty the trash.
This is just ridiculous in my option so I just did the "Empty Trash" feature, showing me only 350 items, which deleted quickly in under 5 minutes...
So far I know with Secure Empty Trash that the trash is securely layered with 0's & 1's....but wonder what happens with just "Empty Trash?"
How easily accessible is it for someone to retrieve something that i've deleted?
i just got my macbook about a month ago and today i tried to do some customizing things with icons and i found the "trash empty" icon and accidentally deleted it and emptied the trash... so i only have the "trash full icon" and i cant find the "trash empty" icon
My 09 Mac Pro trash won't make the normal trash sound when emptying the trash in SL. Does anyone know if this is for all SL users or how I can turn it back on? I like hearing the sound and don't like the fact that I have a glitch if this is one.
I've noticed that when I "Secure Empty Trash" though it takes longer, I usually regain a lot of gigabytes back. Currently, as of this post i'm "secure emptying trash" and i've regained about 25GB's which sounds about right considering there was about that much worth of video recordings from my video camera I no longer needed.
In the past when I've just "deleted trash" i've seen different results. If I have say 10GB's in the trash and I just "empty trash" then i'll maybe gain back like a GB or 2. ...if anything.
So, my concern is...say currently with the 25GB amount of trash I have, If I decided to just "empty trash", I obviously would not have gained back all the 25GB's..., perhaps just a few, guessing something like 5GB.
Well, does that mean that those GB's that are emptied in the trash (not securely) are just lost forever?
..Or will I regain those GB's the next time around (say weeks later) I securely empty the trash with whatever happens to be in there (all new stuff in the trash)?
Am I making sense?
Kinda confusing to me cause I don't understand it. But I feel it's vital for me to get this and have the most amount of gigs available on my Mac now that i'm using about 30GB's per week filming stuff and editing it on iMovie.
When I direct the G5 Leopard to "empty trash" I get a window saying "preparing to empty trash" and a counter that zooms upward, but no trash emptying. I ask myself "how difficult can this be?" But I guess the answer is 'too difficult for me."
y iMac is running Leopard and Windows 7 RC1 in Bootcamp.
From Leopard, I deleted some files on my Win7 partition, however, now Trash won't empty those files. It doesn't come up with any error.I have tried holding the Option key went emptying Trash, and have tried running repair permissions via Disk Utility.
This may sound simple, and I did search the forums. One thread suggested holding down "Option", that did nothing. "Command" "control" or any combination of the Three also did nothing. Another Thread gave a program called "Force Empty Trash". It is only tested on 10.3 or something, I run Tiger 10.4. I Ran the program anyway, and the Trash emptied, but then the Phantom Files Returned. The files in question are Corrupted iTunes music folders that had nothing in them, but I couldn't access them. "File Cannot Be Read Or Written I Tried Deleting them, and most moved to Trash -- one was stubborn. A Repair of Disk Permissions Made it enter the Trash Bin -- and that is where they Remain. I rebooted, and attempted an Empty, but It tells me "File Is In Use" despite the fact that; A: iTunes is closed, and B: It was part of a different iTunes Library (I moved, and re-added everything after dealing with the corrupt folders) So now I am at a Loss as to how to get rid of these files. They are not locked, and are set for me to "Read & write" in the Permissions. Is there a program that would Tell me what Processes are linked to the folders? What could still be accessing them? I was told maybe I have a Virus, if so, what are the best up-to-date OS X Virus scanners?
When I empty my trash they all delete except 2 particular files. They have weird names with symbols in them. I don't know if it matters but when I press get info it says they are in the Windows XP .Trashes folder. I used a hidden file application to look for them and delete them but that didn't work. I can't drag them out the trash can. There is nothing showing in Windows XP in the recycle bin. I tried verifying the disk. Overall, nothing has worked at all and I've searched everywhere for an answer.
I went through and deleted a lot of stuff then when I was emptying the trash it said that there was a locked file so I found out were it was pulled it out and then got rid of everything else there are about 720 locked files in the folder then I tried to find a quicker way to delete it then I found out how to unlock them so I went to pull them out but it just made a copy of it so now and I put it back in the trash not thinking about how that just adds on to the files so how can I get them out or make it so I can press continue just once for them all to go away.
My Trash is filled with very large files which I deleted from my Time Machine Backups. I tried to empty the trash many times and each time it took an age to prepare and delete and even then, it didn't delete it. How do I force the trash to empty and to empty quickly rather than take 12 hours? Is there a command line I can use or anything else which will do the job almost instantly?
Suddenly, every file I put in the trash can is emptied immediately. This has never happened before, and I do not believe it is because of a setting somewhere that I changed. Any tips on how to prevent this?
i just deleted some files+emptied the trash... and just now read up about "secure empty trash", is there anyway to make sure the files i have already deleted are unrecoverable?
MacBook Pro 13" Mac OS X 10.6.8 2.3GHz i5 8GB 1333 MHz Western Digital Passport USB2.0 1GB 32GB SD card
I plugged in the SD card, plugged in the WD Passport, and copied files from the SD to the WD Passport. I verified that the files are copied by comparing folder sizes, and amount of files. I then highlighted the files in the SD card, and delete. Then I opened Trash and compared the files in the Trash and the files in the WD Passport to ensure I really have copied the files.
Then I clicked Empty, and I saw files from both folders GONE in a matter of a second! How do I recover it? I'm not going to write on my SD and on my WD Passport from now, but I need a better more reliable software. I've tried Stellar Phoenix but it failed me. Remo just refuses to start up. This is urgent, as everyone would say, but this is for real! 30GB worth of files!
Running 10.6.4 on a 27" iMac 3.06 GHz C2D. I was irritated by sometimes not being able to empty items from my trash(message that file was in use when it wasn't). I found on lancelhoff.com a command for terminal(cd ~/.Trash && sudo rm -rf ) followed by directory/filename which allowed these pesky files to be deleted which worked great. I was showing my manager the trick I'd found and while doing so, it stopped deleting the files.
Now when I put items in the trash I get a message 'Are you sure you want to delete "xxxx.yyy"? This item will be deleted immediately. You can't undo this action" instead of putting it in the trash. The files I was trying to delete when I was doing my doomed demo will not delete even after a restart. I did a fix permissions on my drive with Disk Utility which was no help in this regard.
I tried to trash one of the Time Machine backups from an external drive, but now it's stuck in the Trash and I cannot get rid of it. The "Secure Empty Trash" option doesn't do it.
i have alot of trash that is taking up space and it is slowing down my mac. everytime i try to empty my trash it asks me to securely empty the trash and i do. the window pops up and looks as if it starts but then it disappears.
