Empty trash quickly

[gsusser]

I have over 100,000 files in my trash. I know there's a command to empty the trash or delete all the files at once. Can someone let me know what this is or if there is another way to get rid of these files quickly?

Does TM copy trashed files? That could be the reason I have no more room and I get errors trying to backup with SuperDuper.

The problem that led to this - I tried to completely erase the files from an external drive. I got a message "unable to unmount disk" or something like that. So I erased the files. I guess I should have gotten to the bottom of why I couldn't use disk utility to erase my files. Any thoughts?

Thanks!

 

[maflynn]

Nope, it deletes them in an orderly manner. If you have that many in your trash I have to say what were you deleting

You can use a terminal command to delete the contants of the trash, but I'm not sure that's any faster since its doing the same thing and removing 100,000 files will take time no matter what.

 

[justperry]

I have over 100,000 files in my trash. I know there's a command to empty the trash or delete all the files at once. Can someone let me know what this is or if there is another way to get rid of these files quickly?

Does TM copy trashed files? That could be the reason I have no more room and I get errors trying to backup with SuperDuper.

The problem that led to this - I tried to completely erase the files from an external drive. I got a message "unable to unmount disk" or something like that. So I erased the files. I guess I should have gotten to the bottom of why I couldn't use disk utility to erase my files. Any thoughts?

Thanks!

Did you use Command-shift-backspace to delete the files on that external disk, if so it 'moves' them to the trash (Your User Trash).
And that might be the reason why there are so many.

 

[gsusser]

Did you use Command-shift-backspace to delete the files on that external disk, if so it 'moves' them to the trash (Your User Trash).
And that might be the reason why there are so many.

Nope. Stupid me.

And not to be disrespectful, especially to someone who probably knows 1000 times more than me, but I know there's a terminal command that empties the trash in a second or 2. I only say this because I have an ongoing case with Apple Care and we deleted the trash this way.

Not to digress, but I started experiencing problems when I upgraded to iTunes 11. I often cannot use the search field in iTunes without the program hanging up (endless spinning ball). I have a huge library (the tech said that it was the largest he's seen) so that might have something to do with it. I spent several hours over 2 days with a senior tech trying to fix the problem to no avail. He initially thought the problem was being caused because my library file resided in part in 2 places, my hard drive and an external drive. I have no idea how that happened. Since I have a 2TB hard drive, I've always used it for my music and my external drives were only used for backups. We fixed that but the issue remains. The problem is now in the hands of Apple engineers who have a copy of the keystrokes leading to the problem.