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Cant empty a folder in Trash

M

micke1967

macrumors regular
Original poster
Nov 1, 2012
103
2
Hi I have a problem
In my "Trash" I have a folder from a external disc (still connected thought) which simply do not disappear when I "Empty Trash" it sort of stays a bit half dimmed...
And I can not get rid of it...
I even tried erase it with "CleanMyMac" but that fails as well...

Anyone that could help out??
I don't think the file is locked or at least theres no error messages stating that..in fact emptying the trash always says that it succeeded in emptying trash..
Thing is this folder is still always there...

Any ideas??
best regards Micael
 
maflynn

maflynn

macrumors Haswell
May 3, 2009
73,478
43,405
You can manually force delete what's in the trash in terminal

sudo rm -rf ~/.Trash/*

the -r parameter goes through the directory structure of the the directory listed ~/.Trash/ and the f forces the delete without being prompted.
 
M

micke1967

macrumors regular
Original poster
Nov 1, 2012
103
2
Hi Thanks for the tip
Me not being so experienced osx user..
Could I open the terminal window anywhere or need it be placed in specific directory?
are there any risk in that command??
meaning so I don't erase my entire hard drive or so??
best regards micael
 
M

micke1967

macrumors regular
Original poster
Nov 1, 2012
103
2
I A reboot does not do the trick..I always close my iMac entirely even unplug its power from the wall..
Have had 4 computers in the past that died from thunderstorm so nowadays if I don't use it ---its unplugged entirely
best regards micael
 
maflynn

maflynn

macrumors Haswell
May 3, 2009
73,478
43,405
I just noticed in Mavericks there is no .Trash folder but rather Trash.

the script would need to be altered to this if the first doesn't work

sudo rm -rf ~/Trash/*

The fully qualified path (~ is shorthand for your home folder) means you'll only remove the contents of the directory of Trash.
 
M

micke1967

macrumors regular
Original poster
Nov 1, 2012
103
2
Hi Thanks for the help..
Though I did try sudo rm -rf ~/Trash/*
Unfortunately it did not help..the folder is still there in Trash...
really weird thing this..
any otter suggestions?
best regards micael
 
M

micke1967

macrumors regular
Original poster
Nov 1, 2012
103
2
I did try this below:
Advanced tip about deleting locked files

If there are several locked files in the Trash, you can unlock them all at the same time at the command line. Follow these steps:

Open Terminal. It's located in /Applications/Utilities.

Type: chflags -R nouchg

Note: Type one space (not pictured) after nouchg in the line above, so that it ends in "nouchg ". Do not press Return yet.

Double-click the Trash icon in the Dock to reveal the contents of the Trash. If necessary, arrange the Finder window so that a portion of the Terminal window is still visible.
Press the Command-A key combination to select all files in the Trash.
Drag the files from the Trash to the Terminal window.
Note: This automatically enters the pathname for each file. This eliminates the need to individually empty multiple Trash directories, particularly when multiple disks or volumes are present.
Press Return. No special text message will be shown indicating that the command was successful.
Empty the Trash.
If the Trash does not empty or if you see a message in Terminal that says "usage: chflags [-R [-H | -L | -P]] flags file..." you most likely did not type the text in step 2 as indicated or did not leave a space. Repeat the steps if this happens.

And that did not work either and I got the results in the terminal window as per below...Any Ideas??

micaels-imac:Vuze Downloads Micael_Nina$ chflags -R nouchg /Volumes/Gitarr\ Disk\ 2/.Trashes/501/new\ 5\ mars
chflags: /Volumes/Gitarr Disk 2/.Trashes/501/new 5 mars/Townes Van Zandt - Road Songs (1992)/Road Songs - 03 - Automobile Blues.mp3: Input/output error
chflags: /Volumes/Gitarr Disk 2/.Trashes/501/new 5 mars/Townes Van Zandt - Road Songs (1992)/Road Songs - 04 - The Coo Coo.mp3: Input/output error
chflags: /Volumes/Gitarr Disk 2/.Trashes/501/new 5 mars/Townes Van Zandt - Road Songs (1992)/Road Songs - 05 - Fraulein.mp3: Input/output error
chflags: /Volumes/Gitarr Disk 2/.Trashes/501/new 5 mars/Townes Van Zandt - Road Songs (1992)/Road Songs - 06 - Hello Central.mp3: Input/output error
chflags: /Volumes/Gitarr Disk 2/.Trashes/501/new 5 mars/Townes Van Zandt - Road Songs (1992)/Road Songs - 07 - Indian Cowboy.mp3: Input/output error
chflags: /Volumes/Gitarr Disk 2/.Trashes/501/new 5 mars/Townes Van Zandt - Road Songs (1992)/Road Songs - 11 - Wabash Cannonball.mp3: Input/output error
chflags: /Volumes/Gitarr Disk 2/.Trashes/501/new 5 mars/Townes Van Zandt - Road Songs (1992)/Road Songs - 12 - Short-Haired Woman Blues.mp3: Input/output error
chflags: /Volumes/Gitarr Disk 2/.Trashes/501/new 5 mars/Townes Van Zandt - Road Songs (1992)/Road Songs - 13 - Man Gave Names to All the Animals.mp3: Input/output error
chflags: /Volumes/Gitarr Disk 2/.Trashes/501/new 5 mars/Townes Van Zandt - Road Songs (1992)/Road Songs - 14 - Little Willie the Gambler.mp3: Input/output error
chflags: /Volumes/Gitarr Disk 2/.Trashes/501/new 5 mars/Townes Van Zandt - Road Songs (1992)/Road Songs - 15 - Cocaine Blues.mp3: Input/output error
chflags: /Volumes/Gitarr Disk 2/.Trashes/501/new 5 mars/Townes Van Zandt - Road Songs (1992)/Thumbs.db: Input/output error
chflags: /Volumes/Gitarr Disk 2/.Trashes/501/new 5 mars/Townes Van Zandt - Texas Rain (2001): Input/output error
chflags: /Volumes/Gitarr Disk 2/.Trashes/501/new 5 mars/VA - Best of Country Music Channel [2012]: Input/output error
chflags: /Volumes/Gitarr Disk 2/.Trashes/501/new 5 mars/VA - Country Hits 2014 2013-C4: Input/output error
chflags: /Volumes/Gitarr Disk 2/.Trashes/501/new 5 mars/VA--Hot_and_New_Country_Music_Vol._3-2011-OMA: Input/output error
chflags: /Volumes/Gitarr Disk 2/.Trashes/501/new 5 mars/VA-The Music Of Nashville Season 2 Vol 1-OST-(Deluxe Edition)-2013-[P2PDL]: Input/output error
chflags: /Volumes/Gitarr Disk 2/.Trashes/501/new 5 mars/Willie Nelson - Country Music (2010): Input/output error
micaels-imac:Vuze Downloads Micael_Nina$
 
maflynn

maflynn

macrumors Haswell
May 3, 2009
73,478
43,405
Try running the repair permissions process within the Disk Utility and also repair disk. The Input/output error message is a little disconcerting.

by the way you should have used sudo which runs the command with elevated privileges.
 
xgman

xgman

macrumors 603
Aug 6, 2007
5,672
1,378
Usually with external drives, either the repair works or you then may end up having to copy backup the drive, reformat it and start again. This has happened to me on some flash drives occasionally and sometimes the repair works and other times only a format.
 
GGJstudios

GGJstudios

macrumors Westmere
May 16, 2008
44,545
943
micke1967 said:
Hi I have a problem
In my "Trash" I have a folder from a external disc (still connected thought) which simply do not disappear when I "Empty Trash" it sort of stays a bit half dimmed...
And I can not get rid of it...
I even tried erase it with "CleanMyMac" but that fails as well...
Click to expand...
I would not recommend using CleanMyMac or any of its variants, based on the number of complaints that have been posted in this forum and elsewhere. As an example: CleanMyMac cleaned too much. Here's a recent example. While you may not have experienced problems yet, enough people have that it's wise to avoid it, especially since there are free alternatives that have better reputations, such as Onyx.
​
You don't need "cleaner" or "maintenance" apps to keep your Mac running well, and some of these apps can do more harm than good. Most only remove files/folders or unused languages or architectures, which does nothing more than free up some drive space, with the risk of deleting something important in the process. These apps will not make your Mac run faster or more efficiently, since having stuff stored on a drive does not impact performance, unless you're running out of drive space. In fact, deleting some caches can hurt performance, rather than help it, since more system resources are used and performance suffers while each cache is being rebuilt. Many of these tasks should only be done selectively to troubleshoot specific problems, not en masse as routine maintenance.
​
Mac OS X does a good job of taking care of itself, without the need for 3rd party software. Among other things, it has its own maintenance scripts that run silently in the background on a daily, weekly and monthly basis, without user intervention.
If you haven't already done so, begin by restarting your Mac. That resolves many problems with deleting files. For problems deleting items or emptying the trash, you may find some useful ideas here:
 
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