Cant empty 3 gigs in trash.

[Coldbore]

Like an idiot, I took all my time machine back up's on 3 TB external drive and trashed them. They ended up in my trash on my imac hard drive and I cant delete them.

It runs over night counting the files, then finally it starts to delete them, I get all finds of error's. Is there anything I can do to get these deleted some how?

Thank you!

 

[T'hain Esh Kelch]

Take it out, split it up into smaller pieces and delete them individually. Or try the terminal instead.

 

[Bruno09]

"Maintenance" from Titanium software might help : it is good at emptying the trash after TM backup were put in it.

Connect the external TM drive to the Mac.

Launch Maintenance, uncheck all the tick boxes but "Trash", run it.

https://www.titanium-software.fr/en/maintenance.html

(this is the solution I use when the Terminal is not an option)

 

[Fishrrman]

Re-initialize the drive.

From Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid:
"That oughta do it!"

 

[Coldbore]

Will re initialize'g cause me to loose all data? Or just reinstall operating system and settings?

 

[ApfelKuchen]

Will re initialize'g cause me to loose all data? Or just reinstall operating system and settings?

Your operating system and settings are on the same 3TB external drive as your Time Machine backup???

 

[Coldbore]

the time machine back up's are in the trash on the computers hard drive. Need to empty the trash.

 

[ApfelKuchen]

The Trash is not a physical folder, it's a list of files marked to be Trashed, wherever they may reside. The files are still on the 3TB drive.

 

[Bruno09]

So, just re-initialize (= erase from Disk Utility) the TM drive and you are done (no more TM backups in the Trash).

 

[Coldbore]

Thats awesome, Im gonna try that. Thank you!

 

[Coldbore]

ApfelKuchen, Bruno09,

You guys are great. Thank you both for your help. Worked like a charm. Thanks again!

 

[Coldbore]

You too Fishrrman. Thank yu