OS X V10.7 Lion :: Undo Secure Erase For Empty Trash Method?
May 8, 2012
I am running Lion on a fairly new iMac 21.5 (bought it last September). Apparently I have changed the Empty Trash method to Secure Erase. I really do not need this nor do I want it as it takes forever to empty the trash. How can I get back to the old method of just emptying the trash?
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'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.
Basically, I am 'securely emptying my trash' as we speak. With that said, why exactly does it say that it currently has to empty around 400 something files? Does that include every single file I've deleted in the past, not using the 'secure empty trash'?
Also, once if I deleted my download history, not using 'secure empty trash', is there a way to retrieve it and use 'secure empty trash' to empty it once again?
I'm just a little confused about the 400 something files being deleted using 'secure empty trash'.
Under my finder list on the top of my IMac, I used to be able to click empty trash. Now its turned into secure empty trash. Secure empty trash always locks up and I have to relaunch finder, search for empty trash in help and use it that way. Does anyone know how to get the empty trash option back under my finder list?
How come when I enable the "Secure Empty Trash" feature and put something into the trash and then empty the trash it says it's emptying 4 things even though I only put one single item into the trash bin?
I'ves been trying to do some research on the "secure empty trash can" option and i can't find anything useful.
I've been having this problem where i can't simply "empty trash" and have to click on "secure empty trash" as it the only thing that appears !
To empty a trash can, it deletes 1 item per second and it's getting very tiring and long. Before, i didn't have the "secure empty trash" and wish to get the normal "empty trash"
When I was looking up what the Secure Empty Trash option does I happened across a site that said that "this method might shorten the hard disk lifespan." Is there any truth to this?
I went to empty trash (secure empty trash more specifically) and a few minutes into the process, the hard drive revved WAY WAY up and is whining horribly. Time for a new hard drive or is there anything I can do? Also getting the beach ball with almost everything I do now.
when I try to securely empty the trash it tells me some items are locked and asks to continue with all? If I indicate yes, it stops and says I don't have permissions for all files. the files that remain are mainly old apps and .mp3 from iTunes.How do I fix these permissions to get them deleted?
I searched the forum threads and couldn't find anything on this, apologies in advance if I missed it.
Like an idiot, I started "secure empty trash" and trashed some folders that are massive. The computer is getting hot (MacBook Pro 1st gen) and there are a lot - as in thousands - of files to go. I tried stopping the process, shutting down, and it wouldn't let me. Does anyone know how to do this?
I'm running OSX 4.11.
I know this was dumb. Did it right after a physical therapy appointment while multitasking and I wasn't thinking straight.
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?
Working in Mavericks on an iMac 27. Secure Empty Trash starts but disappears and nothing is deleted. Is it safe to use Erase Free Space in Disk Utility?
While trying to Securely empty trash, I get an error code -8003. The trash bin now has about 2 million files to empty. The large number of files are due to transferring numerous time machine back ups files to be deleted after a partial LaCie hard drive failure.
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.
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)
For some reason, now when I delete or try to drag files/folders to trash, I get warning message 'This item will be deleted immediately. You can't undo this action.' And the files do NOT go into trash. Same if I CMD delete. I noticed this when I emptied the Aperture trash, got a warning something about permissions and cannot empty some files. They disappeared from Aperture, but the referenced master files were still in the original folder on my HD.(So I relocated the masters I was keeping, then deleted the remaining, they did not go into the trash but were permanently deleted). I don't recall changing any settings!I checked in Finder > Preferences > Advanced > 'Empty trash securely' is NOT selected.
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.
I just upgraded to Lion 10.7.4 and am having troubles with emptying the Trash. The dialog box opens and shows the number of items to be deleted, and the blue candy cane starts. Nothing happens - no progress bar appears. If I click on the X to stop the process, it says "Stopping" but again nothing happens. I've left it overnight and nothing changes. Restarting the machine sometimes works, but often I can't restart because "Another process in in use". Only by Force Quitting the FInder will it restart.Â
Cleaned up my MacBook Pro yesterday, put a lot of files in the bin. After (ish) 400 delted files the "process bar" of how much as been deleted did not move anymore. I could not abort the emptying so I had to restart the Finder. The 400 files were gone out of the bin but those files which are now still in there can simply not be deleted. Every time I try to klick "empty trash" my computer gets stuck at "preparying to emtpy trash"
I have loged out, restarted and also tried "secure empty trash" ..... all of it did not work.Every time I want to cancel the emptying it does not react and I have to restart the Finder. Yesterday the Finder even didn´t restart once so I had to restart the entire system. Is there anything I can still do? Pretty unhappy witht he situation and hope all these bugs which were in the Lion update will get fixed with Mountain Lion!
Info:MacBookPro, Mac OS X (10.7.4), MB Pro mid 2009, 2.53Ghz, 4GB DDR3
Just upgraded to Lion from SL, on a 2010 Power PC with 2.66GHz Intel Core Duo. Now, it won't empty the Trash - progress bar just sits there no matter how long I give it. Is there anything I can do about it? Does my machine not support Lion?
When I click on the Trash in the Dock, an empty window appears with the Title "Window". I've not viewed the Trash recently, so I don't know how long this has been going on. I've done a Repair Permissions a couple times, but with no benefit. Any thoughts? I intentionally put files into the Trash and can see the files via the command line when looking in the ~/.Trash folder. Besides the lack of files, the window title is obviously wrong.