Cannot Send Unwanted Items to Trash

[Dusty Bin]

I did post the following question in the Apple Support Community, but received no replies.

I hope someone on here can help.

I have two external hard drives connected to my iMac (OS X El Capitan v.10.11.6).

I can move unwanted files and folders from both my internal hard drive and the first external hard drive to the trash easily.

However, from the second external hard drive, items will not move to Trash.

Instead I see the following message: -

Are you sure you want to delete “file/folder name”? This item will be deleted immediately. You can’t undo this action.

This has only started occurring in the past few days.

What can I do to be able to move items from this second external hard drive to Trash as I can with the other external and the internal hard drives, please?

 

[Gregg2]

Try this:

How to stop OS X from deleting trashed files immediately

A reader can't move items to trash, but is instead always prompted to delete files immediately.

www.macworld.com

 

[Dusty Bin]

Thanks so much for that link, Gregg2, but I didn’t understand all that! Sorry!

The trash works ok for me on my Mac’s internal hard drive, and even on the first external HD.

I’d like to know what I need to do to fix the trash on the second problem external HD.

I may be thick, but I couldn’t work it out from that post you linked to.

 

[brianmowrey]

The post is describing the hidden folder that keeps "trash" items, and how to repair permissions, by re-creating the folder.

Both your external drives have their own hidden trash folder. If you construct the correct command as described in the article, it will tell OS X to remove that folder (and then it will automatically make a new one).

If that seems like overkill, you can try just running First Aid on the drive in Disk Utility first. It's safe and easy. If you are in Catalina, make sure to click "Show All Devices" and run First Aid on the nested volume, and then the disk itself.

first volume(s)

then the drive

If First Aid doesn't work, back to the article.