Can't empty trash?

[carl201167]

Is there an alternative way (in Terminal?) to empty trash?

I have a couple of GBs in my trash folder, but whenever I try to empty it, Finder just hangs. I've tried force reload and rebooting the machine, but nothing empties it

 

[Daffodil]

Without using terminal, you can force empty trash with shift-command-option-delete.

I think the terminal command is: sudo rm -rf ~/.Trash

 

[carl201167]

Thanks. shift-command-option-delete makes no difference

Is that definitely the right terminal command? I don't want to delete anything I shouldn't!!

 

[Jolly Jimmy]

Yes,

sudo rm -rf ~/.Trash

is correct. Then log out and back in again to recreate the trash folder.

 

[carl201167]

Thanks. just one more thing - when you say recreate the trash folder, will it happen automatically or do I need to create it?

(I'm using 10.7.1)

 

[Jolly Jimmy]

It does it automatically when you log back in.

 

[Daffodil]

It does it automatically when you log back in.

Yup. Works like a charm.

 

[carl201167]

hmmm... something more significant might be wrong here.

The sudo rm -rf ~/.Trash command doesn't seem to do anything (I am a beginner with Terminal - should I expect to see some sort of "completed" message?)

I have left Terminal running for 10 mins with just a grey square showing. I am tempted to log out/log in again, but a warning pops up about sudo jobs possibly still running. I presume I should wait, but I wouldn't have thought this should take more than 60 seconds if working correctly?

 

[Knoodles]

With a couple of GB's in the trash, it may take awhile. Let it run. Your trash can will show empty when done.

 

[carl201167]

Thanks everyone.

I think I've found a workaround - I dragged everything out of trash into a temporary desktop folder and then deleted items chunk by chunk. Eventually I found a couple of rogue files that appear to be causing the problem