I dont have permission to empty trash?

[rossikool]

well I am delete files from my external hard drive so I have dragged the files I want to delete, whilst keeping the hard drive connected I click empty securely and a message pops up stating:

The operation can’t be completed because you don’t have permission to access some of the items.

with the option of Skip stop or continue.

I have tried selecting all 3 options but none work

So what is the problem? its the first time I have ever had a problem removing items from my external hard drive.

cheers.

 

[snaky69]

The files are likely marked as read only. Press cmd-i to check. Change permissions if they are.

 

[Idefix]

just get Onyx (it's free) which will allow you to force-empty the trash.

 

[MacGizmo]

Rather than Onyx (which is a great app, but way overkill for this one task), just get TrashIt. It's a quick little GUI wrapper on the same script that Onyx uses, only without all the other overhead.