Repeating File in Trash, Can't Empty It

Somehow I got this forever looping combination of folders in my Trash, and now it won't let me empty the trash. It's kind of hard to explain, but if I open the trash, there is a folder in there called "RaceImages 11.36.24 AM [7/3]". If I drill into that folder, it goes on forever like this....
"RaceImagesThumbs > Desktop > RaceImages > RaceImagesThumbs" and on and on, repeating for basically ever. I could drill down to eternity and still not be able to delete the trash. I've drilled down through that repeating sequence a hundred times and still not seen an end.
If I attempt to empty the trash, it first says "the operation can't be completed because the item 'ML1_2014' is in use.", but I don't see that file. If I click continue, it says it can't be completed because the item "Desktop" is in use, and from there my repeating folder nightmare starts. Clicked 'Continue' a 100 times and the same sequence of folders as above are "in use".
Tried "Secure Empty" the trash, tried the finder menu "Option > Empty Trash". All to no avail...same error messages.
Does anyone have any idea what I can do here?
Thanks for the help...

I have actually had a similar issue like this before and it was a simple fix once I figured it out.
Move the folder that is in the trash to your Desktop. Open it and then move the folder that is in there to the trash. You should be able to empty the trash. Next move the empty folder that you had put on the Desktop back into the trash and you should be able to empty it again.
Also, you should run an app like DiskWarrior, TechTool Pro or Drive Genius that can rebuild the volume directories.

Similar Messages

My trash can shows empty and other issues with it...

Ok basically, if i delete anything on my mac it should go to my trash can right?
Well i have a few problems with that as follows:
1. Everytime i delete something or move something to the trash it asks me to enter my password everytime, then deletes it, this never used to happen and now all of a sudden it does, this started just before the latest lion update and ive tried everything i know to stop it doing it but failed.
2. When i do delete something, the trash can shows empty on my desktop, and when i open the trash there is nothing inside, so im not able to restore anything if required, so basically if i move anything to trash it just gets permanently deleted instead of storing it in trash first, again this started just before the latest lion update.
I was hoping the update would fix this issue but didnt change it what so ever, i have also tried repairing disk permissions and still no change.
Any ideas on what i can do to fix these problems? Im still new to mac so i dont know all the ins and outs, but any help on this would be appreciated.
Cheers all,
Carl

Boot from your recovery partition by holding down the key combination command-R at startup. Release the keys when you see a gray screen with a spinning dial.
When the recovery desktop appears, select Utilities ▹ Terminal from the menu bar.
In the Terminal window, enter “resetpassword” (without the quotes) and press return. A Reset Password window opens.
Select your boot volume if not already selected.
Select your username from the menu labeled Select the user account if not already selected.
Under Reset Home Directory Permissions and ACLs, click the Reset button.
Select  ▹ Restart from the menu bar.

TS1702 Long story short, I downloaded garageband and deleted it in the trash can and emptied it. When i o to the apple store it says that its installed but i cant find it nowhere in the iMac. Please help

Long story short, I downloaded garageband and deleted it in the trash can and emptied it. When i o to the apple store it says that its installed but i cant find it nowhere in the iMac. Please help

Yet another example of why it's a VERY BAD IDEA to do a clean install of Lion unless you are already VERY familiar with how to tweak the Mac OS. There's a reason Apple engineers removed it as an option. To accomplish it you have to erase your disk; not for the faint hearted.
Do you have a backup? PLEASE don't tell us you did this without a robust backup.
You erased the operating machine, so your computer went to the only place it could find one, the Recovery partition. And it's minimal, so it has to download everything in small chunks to reinstall itself. So yeah, it could take 10 hours.
Here's another option. Do you still have the original disks that came with your machine? Put one in and restart from it. You can reinstall your old system much faster. Then go to the Mac App Store and your purchase history and see if you can redownload Lion (I think that still works).
And this time just do yourself a favor and install per Apple's instructions. When the machine starts into Lion, use Setup ***'t (the first thing that fires up) to migrate from your backup.
Rob

Super stubborn files in Trash - won't empty!

Hi all,
a few days ago i deleted 2 files from my windows partition by dragging them strait to the trash in osx.
Since than, the trash won't empty!
I found quite a few ultimate trash guides, and I've tried EVERYTHING -
1. secure empty trash says "The finder can't complete the oparation because some data in "" can't be read or written (error code -36)".
2. forcing empty by holding the option button - nothing.
3. using the commands in the terminal (sudo, rm...) - nothing.
4. the files don't appear in the terminal when i use the ls command (enabeling viewing of hidden files)
5. repairing hd permissions - fixes quite a few errors but trash still wont empty.
6. checking the disk through windows 7 via bootcamp - nothing (files dont exist)
7. 3rd party apps - nothing (i tried about 5 different programs).
8. i even tried restoring my system via time machine - files are still there!!
Please help, what else must i do???
Thanks,
Daniel.

*Trash Problems*
If trash can't delete because an item is busy, try restarting the computer.
If trash won't delete because an item is locked, try holding down the option key when emptying the trash.
Try booting to Safe Mode (hold down the shift key while booting, restart may take a long time but let it go), sometimes just doing that works. Restart normally.
Reading
[You can't empty the Trash or move a file to the Trash in Mac OS X|http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1526]
[Solving Trash Problems|http://www.thexlab.com/faqs/trash.html]
[How To Fix Stubborn Trash and Why it Won't Delete|http://www.osxfaq.com/Tutorials/LearningCenter/HowTo/Trash/index.ws]
[rccharles: Discussion on trashing problem files with Terminal commands|http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=9168842#9168842]
[Mini-tutorial: Force-deleting stubborn or problematic files in Mac OS X...|http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13727_7-10328342-263.html]
[Trash immediately emptying and permanently deleting file when you drag a file to it|http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=11390063]
*Utilities for emptying trash*
[Trash It!|http://www.nonamescriptware.com/?page_id=5]
[DropNuke|http://divnull.com/blog/products/software>
[Super Empty Trash 2.3|http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/16727] - Simple AppleScript applet that will empty the Trash with administrator privileges
[What's Keeping Me|http://www.hamsoftengineering.com/products/wkm/wkm.html] - lists files open and applications that are using them

Macbook Air Restoring files from Trash Can in Time Machine

I have memory issues with my Macbook Air. I think casued by the fact iphoto uses so much memory. Last week I was trying to download some photos but got a message saying my start up drive was nearly full. Next think i know, the Macbook has somehow dumped about 500 of my old photos in the trash can (I didn't do this). A few minutes later I look in the trash can and find it's emptied itself.
The next morning when I turned on my laptop, about 1 GB of memory had reappeared, and the photos were back in the trash can. My plan was to restore the photos however I stupidly didn't do it immediately as I was busy.
Now a weel later, I again got the message that my start up drive was full. The photos have disappeared from the trash can. I have reboted the Mac, but they have not reappeared.
I backup using an external hard drive and Time Machine. All I want to do is go into the trash can on the back up and restore the photos from there. I don't want to restore the whole Mac, as I will lose all the work I've done since that last back up, won't I? I can't search for the specific files on the Time Machine as I don't know what they're called - they were 100s of photos, the names were numbers only and I don't know which photos they were - as it wasn't me who deleted them!
Please can anyone help me?
I find these issues so frustrating, and I can't believe my 60 GB laptop is full. I only use it for photos, browsing the web and a few documents. My previous Windows netbook was about a quarter the size and never got close to full.

Do you know if the hard drive is full, does iPhoto move files to the trash can?
No, it doesn't.
Or does it have a setting to clean up duplicate files
No. There are third-party applications that purport to do it, and if you used one of those, that would explain what happened.
Is my only option therefore to restore the entire system to an earlier date?
I don't see why you would need to restore anything other than the iPhoto library, or whatever folder contained the missing files.
You can't do a partial restoration of the iPhoto library; it's all or nothing. However, if you restore an older library to a new location, you can extract images from it and import them into a newer library.

System file in Trash Can?

I tried to empty my trash can and found this un-trashable folder "Backups.backupdb" and when I moved it to the desktop and opened it, I found these nested folders:
Backups.backupdb > name > name iMac> dates System> Library> CoreServices > boot.efi.
I have no idea how it got in the Trash, what it is and if it should/should not be trashed... if if can be trashed. And if it's needed, where should I move it to... if I can move it off the desktop.
Brian

mendel1,
Maybe that wasn't such a good idea. I tried it and this was running for half an hour before I tried to stop it:
Now I can't get rid of it, I can't stop it and I can't even "restart" from Finder. Suggestions?
Brian

Stuborn file in trash can.

Hi,
I have a strange file in my Trash can , that refuses to be deleted.
I do a 'ls' and see the following :
$ ls
ls: Tiếng Việt.html: No such file or directory
total 0
drwxrwxrwx 3 root admin 102 Apr 24 23:45 .
drwxrwxrwx 3 root admin 102 Apr 24 23:45 ..
if I then try to delete Tiếng Việt.html I get :
rm -R Tie\314\202\314\201ng\ Vie\314\202\314\243t.html
rm: Tiếng Việt.html: No such file or directory
Note that I dont type the filename. I press <TAB> after the T and it autocompletes the filename.
I have tried forcing the deletion of the entire .Trash directory without any success. I have tried Trashit & Cocktail without success.
Any ideas.
Alan.

Niel,
Ran the Disk Utility :
Repairing permissions for “Macintosh HD”
Determining correct file permissions.
Permissions repair complete
The privileges have been verified or repaired on the selected volume
But still got the same results :
$ ls
ls: Tiếng Việt.html: No such file or directory
total 0
drwxrwxrwx 3 root admin 102 Apr 24 23:45 .
drwxrwxrwx 3 root admin 102 Apr 24 23:45 ..
$ rm T*
rm: Tiếng Việt.html: No such file or directory
Alan.

ICloud trash can not empty

When I select empty trash on iCloud mail. I get the message:
Cannot empty folder.
This folder can not be emptied at this time
Clicking OK dismisses the window and no messages have been deleted. I have tried this from more than one Mac, all get the same response.
How can I empty the trash on my account?
Thanks,
Mike

My problem was fixed. Here's some details.
I contacted Apple for help and they were immediately available and very helpful. The first person I talked to admitted that the account was showing other issues on his end and he was not sure how to correct it so he bumped it up to the next level. The second person quickly saw some bigger issues and suggested that "engineering" get involved. I was told that there should be a resolution in a day or two.
Not waiting for an email I contacted the second level guy two days later. He wanted to make sure that the iCloud account was set up and enabled (I had disabled it) in Mail on the computer. He asked me to select Mail > Mailbox > Erase Deleted Items in the iCloud account. I wasn't sure why I was doing this since the Trash was empty and storage was still showing 4.5GB for Mail, but I did as I was instructed.
After I did that I checked the storage again and it showed 3.8GB! A few minutes later it had dropped to 618KB!
I asked what they did and he indicated that apparently their servers did not pick up my request to delete soooo many emails at one time. I had selected almost all of the email to delete all at the same time.
Whether there's more to it than that I'm not sure, and I don't care. I do know that before I called them there was a problem and after I called them there is no longer a problem. The key to all of this might be the Bold part above, though.
I will say they were very quick to assign someone to me (within a minute), and very accommodating, and quick to resolve the problem.
I think the original problem stemmed from trying to delete such a huge amount of email at one time. I don't think I will do that again.

Del file without trash can

If you del a file in NT, the file just only is deleted, but the same code in W98 take the file into the trash can.
Can we delete it definitively?
Thanks

Actually in either case....files are not deleted, just the reference to them are deleted. If you want to make files "unrecoverable" then you would need to overwrite the location on the disk where they reside with something else. Java gives you no such fine-grained control but you could do one of two things:
Either write a routine using C, put into a DLL and use JNI to call that routine to remove the file.
or
Write a routine in C - an executable that you call using java that you use to delete the file.
First method is best but harder to do.

Is it possible to retrieve files after trash has been emptied?

Is it possible to retrieve files after they have been emptied from trash?
I have over relied on USB sticks to transfer / store files, and have experienced a catastrophic failure of one particular USB stick,
with info that took me months to prepare. Any good news out there?

General File Recovery
If you stop using the drive it's possible to recover deleted files that have not been overwritten by using recovery software such as Data Rescue II, File Salvage or TechTool Pro. Each of the preceding come on bootable CDs to enable usage without risk of writing more data to the hard drive. Two free alternatives are Disk Drill and TestDisk. Look for them and demos at MacUpdate or CNET Downloads. Recovery software usually provide trial versions that enable you to determine if the software would help before actually paying for it. Beyond this or if the drive has completely failed, then you would need to send the drive to a recovery service which is very expensive.
The longer the hard drive remains in use and data are written to it, the greater the risk your deleted files will be overwritten.
Also visit The XLab FAQs and read the FAQ on Data Recovery.

Weird File in trash can--can't delete

I Have this weird file in my trashcan that won't delete. I can drag it out of my trashcan and put it on the desktop and it disappears only to go back into the trashcan a couple days later. I have no idea what is causing this. Any help would be appreciated. Attached is a Picture of my trashcan so you can see what i'm talking about
[img=http://img233.imageshack.us/img233/1561/picture1yf8.th.jpg][img=http://img233.imageshack.us/images/thpix.gif]

I've used Force Empty Trash and it has not failed yet:
http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/17841
Thanks ... Ken

File got trashed, but not emptied.

Why did I not get the chance to retrieve a file from the trash. If I have not emptied the trash, and the file is still there, why can't I get to it?

Assuming you mean the System folder you mentioned on your other thread, it's because all the actions you're now trying to perform have no references - they're in the trash instead of where they should be.

Do I need to know what a "Recovered File" in trash is before emptying the trash?

I have seen several questions about Recovered Files in the trash and am guessing its safe to just dump the trash. The files are "Image Debug" and "MaglevExpressTemp140". I did a google search and know that I'm not the only one this has happened to and I'm pretty sure its not serious, but wondered if anyone knows what they are.
I'm thinking it might have something to do with scanning of some old photos I did earlier today on my HP C6280 All-in-One. There was an HP software update a few days ago and its working fine, but maybe this is a bug that my mac just trashes. If possible, I would like to understand what it is. If its too technical, I'll just trash it whenever it shows up. I have had a few unknown Recovered File folders show up in the past and trashed them with no consequences that I know of. thank you.
laverne's mom

Thank you. Nothing crashed at all which I guess is a good thing. I just couldn't figure out where they came from and since the only things I did today besides being on a few forums that I am involved with was to scan some really old family photos to email or post on one of the forums. So it is either something in the scanning or in Preview. and like I said the HP software is the one most recently updated. I'm going to trash them now so I don't have to think about it. And will do it again if the reappear.
laverne's mom

Nul File in Trash Can

I have a file that keeps returning to my trashcan!
Kind: Alias
Size: 0 KB
Date: Dec. 31, 1903
Name: nulnulnulnul.1/2,
Can someone please help me make it go away? Thanks!

Hello page95,
And welcome to Apple Discussions!
I don't have any direct answers for you, but I may be able to point you to somebody or somewhere that can. Do you by chance use Bootcamp or Parallels? If so, you may need to run a Checkdisk on the Windows side to get rid of it.
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=6137123
Hope it helps.
B-rock

Trashed a folder called 2011-....... and now i cant empty my trash can?

some how a folder named 2011-01-30-181221 is in the trash can, and it has every thing from my macintosh?
plz give me some idea's of what todo

If you do not want to empty the trash remove the folder from the trash can. If you want to empty the trash yet refuses to do so - You can't empty the Trash or move a file to the Trash
Can't Empty Trash Thread

Repeating File in Trash, Can't Empty It

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