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Question

I cannot empty Trash bin ( containing 166000 items ) on Imac

Jan 29, 2015 6:49PM PST

I have tried 'everything' : Terminate , empty securily , Trash it..... What can/should I do?????

Discussion is locked

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Answer
Re: trash bin
Jan 29, 2015 6:57PM PST

I assume you tried the methods you found with https://www.google.com/search?q=empty+trash+bin+mac to empty it (delete all files at once) and none of them worked. Can you tell the errors given by those methods.

Then all that rests:
- Can you delete individual files from the trash bin?
- Can you delete 100 files at the same time? Then the issue is nearly solved (just repeat 1660 times).

Kees

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I cannot empty trash bin ( 166 items)
Jan 29, 2015 9:22PM PST

In fact , I cannot even remove 1 item!
When I go by ' secure empty ' it looks up the items to delete... I see the result : 166800 items to delete.

When I choose 1 or all: same result: it asks whether to choose the locked or the unlocked , and either way,
as soon as I choose ( locked or unlocked) the dialogue window disappears and ... nothing happens.... even not when I wait a long time.
The next time I perform this procedure , i still have exactly 166800 items to delete.....

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Unfortunately it is not possible to select the items you
Jan 29, 2015 10:44PM PST

wish to delete.

These files would not have come from an external hard drive by any chance? If they did, then connect the external back up again and try emptying the trash again.

Failing that, launch Terminal and copy and paste the following into it: sudo rm -rf ~/.Trash/*

P

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Re: trash can
Jan 30, 2015 12:21AM PST

In Windows you can select items to delete.
Finally something in which Windows is better!

Kees

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(NT) And it took a long time to get there. :-)
Jan 30, 2015 3:52AM PST
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cannot empty trash bin
Jan 30, 2015 5:42AM PST

Have Imac since 2 years... never did I get any message/ warning : empty trash bin... it's getting too full....
.....

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You are not supposed to.
Jan 31, 2015 3:04AM PST

The trash bin will hold an enormous amount of files, depending on how big your hard drive is.

It has to be emptied at some time, just like the one at your house

P

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Trash bin
Jan 30, 2015 7:10AM PST

Finally able to delete via Terminal.
1000 at one time , no more.
But at least this works!
Thanks!!!
M

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Cannot empty trash bin
Jan 30, 2015 5:40AM PST

No, doenot come from an external drive...
Copied in terminal ..;sudo rm -rf ~/.Trash/*
and get message ' argument too long'....
...

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rmdir?
Jan 30, 2015 6:05AM PST
sudo rmdir ~/.Trash

Then create a new ~/.Trash folder if necessary. Use mkdir command and remember to set permissions.
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Their example had extra characters on the command line.
Jan 30, 2015 6:51AM PST

Some folk have no idea what a good command line looks like so they'll dump periods and spaces or just rewrite it with odd results.

for mat in texas.
Bob

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ah
Jan 30, 2015 9:30AM PST

I missed realizing the extra periods was used or given as part of the command.

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(NT) Not exactly what I typed.
Jan 31, 2015 3:02AM PST