Can't Empty Trash

[mspetpro]

I am trying to empty my trash folder, but, I keep getting these messages:The operation can’t be completed because the item “libexec” is in use.The operation can’t be completed because the item “System” is in use. The operation can’t be completed because the item “share” is in use. The operation can’t be completed because the item “usr” is in use. The operation can’t be completed because the item “2018-03-10-142125” is in use. Even when I close all the other programs and have nothing open, it still comes up with the same messages. I am on a Imac 21.5" Mid 2011 2.7 GHz Intel Core i5, 12 GB memory 1333 MHz DDR3, if that helps. Could it be that I have to umount my external drive that has some backups on it?
Thanks for the help

 

[Fishrrman]

Have you tried rebooting the Mac, and THEN emptying the trash?

 

[mspetpro]

Well no I didn’t think of that duh. Thanks ill try that!

 

[mspetpro]

I tried that and it still didn't work. I did eject my external drive and now the trash is empty so it must be something on that drive. Thanks for the help

 

[Fishrrman]

1. Connect the external drive, let it mount on the desktop
2. Hold down the COMMAND key and then select "empty trash".
3. Does this change anything?

 

[mspetpro]

Nope that didn't work either. It's something to do with a backup of an app on my Imac
Concerning the Idrive backups of my computer. I was trying to delete really old files that were backed up
.

 

[Fishrrman]

Next thing to try:
1. Mount the external drive so you can see its icon on the desktop
2. Click ONE TIME on the icon to select it
3. Bring up the "get info" box for the icon (command-i)
4. At the bottom of get info, click the lock and enter your password
5. Put a check into "ignore ownership on this volume" (sharing and permissions)
6. Close get info

Can you empty the trash now?

 

[mspetpro]

I did all the steps down to #5 and I don't have "ignore ownership on this volume" See attached screenshot

 

[DeltaMac]

Looks like old time machine backups. You don't usually have permission to delete those backups.
You will probably need to disable SIP before you can delete those files.
You can do that by booting to your recovery system, then run the command in the terminal from there.

csrutil disable

restart, then empty the trash on that external drive. You should be successful then. Boot back to the recovery system, then run the terminal command

csrutil enable

, then restart your Mac to finish re-enabling SIP.

 

[mspetpro]

What is SIP? Thanks I’ll try that!

 

[DeltaMac]

What is SIP?
"System Integrity Protection".
macOS has included SIP since El Capitan (I think), and it's purpose is to protect the system. One of the results prevents you from deleting, modifying, or even moving some parts of the system. One of those would be the Time Machine backup files.

 

[mspetpro]

I don’t have El Capitan I have High Sierra so that didn’t work either 😳

 

[DeltaMac]

All macOS systems after El Capitan (which would include your High Sierra) have SIP as part of the system.
So, I am guessing you mean that you tried disabling SIP, and it didn't help.

 

[mspetpro]

When I rebooted into safe mode all I got was disk utilities and couldn’t go anywhere else!

 

[DeltaMac]

I guess you actually booted to your recovery system!
Make sure your normal boot system is selected in your System Preferences/Startup Disk pane.
You have to unlock that Startup Disk pane before you can make changes. Click on your normal boot system to make sure that is chosen as the default.
If you still need to restart into Safe Boot mode (by holding the Shift key), that should work fine when the correct boot disk is the default

 

[mspetpro]

I guess I'm gonna give up and just leave them there. Thanks guys for all your help! I'm over it. LOL

 

[chown33]

Is there anything else on the disk that you want to keep? If so, you could copy it off to another disk, erase the problematic disk completely, then copy the keepable stuff back.

The practicality of this depends on how much stuff you want to keep, and whether it fits on another disk you already have.

 

[mspetpro]

Yes it is my backups of my system and my bookkeeping app. That might work sounds good, I'll give it a try.