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Item in use (want to trash). can't find why.

P

PCM

macrumors regular
Original poster
HI, i have two jpegs on my desktop that are "in use". I can't find any program that's using them. Even when the only thing open is the finder, they are still locked. I'd like to trash them as they are large files.

Thanks for any help in advance.
 
edesignuk said:
Have you rebooted then tried to delete them?
Click to expand...
yes, a few times. They were downloaded off a compact flash card which is no longer mounted (lacie USB 2.0 card reader). Nikon D70 files.
 
PCM said:
yes, a few times. They were downloaded off a compact flash card which is no longer mounted (lacie USB 2.0 card reader). Nikon D70 files.
Click to expand...

Ah that might be the problem! If you dragged the file off the compact flash into the trash then you need to remount the compact flash then erase.
 
Raid said:
Ah that might be the problem! If you dragged the file off the compact flash into the trash then you need to remount the compact flash then erase.
Click to expand...
Although it sounds like they were saved to his computer and then trashed, not trashed directly from the card.

Can you drag them out of the trash, re-open them in an application, quite the app, re-trash and delete? It sounds like they were never properly closed.

You could also try Option-Empty Trash, which may work (but I think that's only for locked files).
 
For any stubborn files I would just use a program like Onyx to force empty the trash. And the computer can just cope. 🙂
 
You could try Terminal...

Type 'cd .Trash' and press enter to get into Trash, check if the files are actually there by doing a 'ls' and remove with 'rm file1.jpg file2.jpg' or, if they're real stubborn, 'sudo rm file1.jpg file2.jpg'.
 
From an Apple support doc

Rename the file to "remove.rtf"
Open TextEdit (/Applications/TextEdit)
From the File menu, choose Save As
Type: "remove" in the Save As field
Select the location where the file is located
Click Save, then Replace
Quit TextEdit
Drag remove.rtf to the Trash
 
thanks everyone. I ended up using Onyx as I already have it and it was time for my weekly cache / permissions cleaning.

Gracias...
 
Close down Mail next time.

If you send an atttachment of an image, Mail will latch on to it sometimes.
 
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