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Deleting -186,000 items and counting?

ELMI0001

ELMI0001

macrumors 6502
Original poster
In the process of deleting many old files on an external hard drive I came back to my machine 20 minutes later to find this dialog box.

Is this normal? I'm guessing the # of items shown is an estimate then? But boy was Lion off in this case.

Screen+Shot+2012-02-12+at+7.50.02+AM.png
 
A couple of things can explain this behavior. If you do a Secure Empty Trash, it actually "deletes" each file multiple times, and the counting system doesn't fully understand the way it does it, so you see that behavior. Also, if you were deleting Time Machine backups, it doesn't recognize the hard linking system properly, and the same behavior appears. As you saw, it does eventually finish, you just don't get any sort of reliable timeframe estimate (not that they are ever particularly accurate anyways).

jW
 
Mal said:
A couple of things can explain this behavior. If you do a Secure Empty Trash, it actually "deletes" each file multiple times, and the counting system doesn't fully understand the way it does it, so you see that behavior. Also, if you were deleting Time Machine backups, it doesn't recognize the hard linking system properly, and the same behavior appears. As you saw, it does eventually finish, you just don't get any sort of reliable timeframe estimate (not that they are ever particularly accurate anyways).

jW
Click to expand...

I did delete my Time Machine backups from 2010 in addition to other stuff. That explains it.
 
GermanyChris said:
you're excused.
Click to expand...

I'm serious ... why the condescending tone?

I had a legit question and someone helpful responded. If you aren't impressed with my level of knowledge regarding deleting Time Machine backups why bother to post? Don't build your post/day around my question.
 
Last edited:
ELMI0001 said:
I'm serious ... why the condescending tone?

I had a legit question and someone helpful responded. If you aren't impressed with my level of knowledge regarding deleting Time Machine backups why bother to post? Don't build your post/day around my question.
Click to expand...

In secure much?
 
Easyand quick to empty trash via the Terminal

Open Terminal paste:

sudo rm -rf ~/.Trash/*

you asked for admin password
and it is done
!
 
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