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nature girl

macrumors newbie
Original poster
I have quite a few files and folders in my trash, but i can't delete them because it says that the file/folder is locked. I don't remember locking those files at all, and i can't figure out how to unlock them so that i can delete them. Can anyone help me? Thanks!
 
Select the item and 'Get Info' on it (Command–I). In the 'General' Pane of the information panel you should see a 'Locked' button. Click it off and that should do the trick.
 
If you hold down the option key when you empty the trash, it will delete all files regardless of whether they are locked or not.
 
Thanks.

I checked the info on the files, but the "locked" option is not checked. Strange... But i did do the option+empty trash trick and it worked! Thanks!
 
This happens to me sometimes when a file has been opened in an application (or was a disk image), the closed, and deleted. I know that I've closed the file but sometimes the Trash won't empty telling me that the file is still in use (I think the term was "locked"). I've not tried the Option-Empty Trash method before (will do in the future, mind) but either putting the system to sleep or waiting a bit usually does the trick for me.
 
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