Can't empty trash "501"

On my Mac Book Pro (2008, OS 10.6.8) I keep getting a message:
"501" can't be opened right now because it is being used by another task, such as moving or copying an item or emptying the Trash. Try again when the current task is complete."
I have:
1. Rebooted the computer (even removed battery after shut-down)
2. Made sure no programs were running or Finder windows opened.
3. tried to erase only a small fraction of the 2,500 files that have accumulated in the trash....Yikes!
Any one have a solution to this problem of mine?

Run disk utility, fix any errors. Verify disk and repair permissions. After that try to delete the files.

Similar Messages

Have file in Trash and can not empty trash . Showing 63 files and tried to shut down and restart and still will not empty

Have file in Trash and can not empty trash . Showing 63 files and tried to shut down and restart and still will not empty.Anyone know what can be done?

You are welcome. Glad I could help/
Allan

Emailing Excel sheets-can't empty trash

I notice anytime I send someone an Excel spreadsheet & then dump that excel into trash I can't empty trash, why is this? I close down all excel worksheets. I even trash the sent mail that had the excel attachment. Why does it think there's still an open Excel running? Is there a simpler solution then having to use Mac Janitor or Onyx everytime I do this?

Sometimes the Mail application will hold up the process. I can't explain why, but next time try quiting Mail when you have that problem. Then you should be able to empty the trash.

How can I empty trash? It won't empty. I received error code -8003.

How can I empty trash? It won't empty. I received error code -8003.

Usually rebooting clears it so you can empty the trash, otherwise:
Can't empty trash:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1526?viewlocale=en_US
How to Force Empty the Trash:
http://www.thexlab.com/faqs/trash.html#Anchor-Force-11481

Can't empty trash because of error code -8003

I can't empty trash which contains numerous items because of error code -8003. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Read other postings. Downloaded Trash It. Problem solved. EC

-8003 Error "Can't Empty Trash" only with specific item

Tried to get rid of a folder for an applicaiton that I'd downloaded & installed on a trial basis, then decided not to buy.
Any time I trash this folder with the app and related files, I get the "Can't Empty Trash -8003" error.
If I remove that folder, I can empty the trash fine.
Any ideas?
(the download app is Extensis Portfolio 8.5)

You could try using TrashIt!
Here's a cnet article about -8003:
Here's another discussion on the same topic.
Here's a general article on solving trash problems.

Can't empty trash in OSX10.6.8. Used Trashit unsucessfully. If I run sudo rm -ri ~/.Trash, terminal crashes

Can't empty trash in OSX10.6.8. Used Trashit unsucessfully. If I run sudo rm -ri ~/.Trash, terminal crashes. PowerMac G-5

This should do the job without all the Ys. BUT you must be 100% certain you have entered the command EXACTLY as written below. One typo and you could lose all the data in your user. Copy/paste only and TRIPLE check it's entered properly in Terminal. The -f option, instead of the -i option will force empty and delete immediately. No questions. (rm is remove/delete, -r is everything inside the folder, -f is force, no questions)
sudo rm -rf ~/.Trash
There is a single space between sudo and rm
" rm and -rf
" -rf and ~/.Trash
NO SPACES IN ~/.Trash
It may take a while, depending on how many items are being deleted. You'll know it's done when you get a new $ sign prompt.

Can not empty Trash

Hi there, I have recently had a corrupt iphoto library. I have extracted the pictures and created a new library. After doing this I deleted the old library, which is in my MAC trash (not iphoto trash).
I can not empty my trash and have searched everywhere online for a resolution, these are things I have tried ....help I need to dump this large library.
Thanks
1- Right Click - empty trash
     I get The operation can’t be completed because the item “iPhoto Library .photolibrary” is in use.
          I have searched this error message and tried using terminal to see what has this in use using the following - couldn't find anything
                    xxx-iMac:~ ryanromero$ lsof | grep iPhoto Library .photolibrary
                    grep: Library: Is a directory
                    grep: .photolibrary: No such file or directory
2 - I've tried doing Secure Empty Trash in which i get the below message
        The operation can’t be completed because you don’t have permission to access some of the items.
3- I have tried using terminal to empty the trash using the following command - It acts like it will delete it but the trash is still there.
     Ryan-Romeros-iMac:~ ryanromero$ sudo rm -rf ~/.Trash/*
     Password:
4- I have also tried this which said it would delete the file but doesn't in terminal
     Ryan-Romeros-iMac:~ ryanromero$ sudo rm -rf /Volumes/Iomega_HDD/.Trashes/501/iPhoto\ Library\ .photolibrary
Password:
rm: /Volumes/Iomega_HDD/.Trashes/501/iPhoto Library .photolibrary/._iPhotoAux.db: Input/output error
rm: /Volumes/Iomega_HDD/.Trashes/501/iPhoto Library .photolibrary/._iPhotoLock.data: Input/output error
rm: /Volumes/Iomega_HDD/.Trashes/501/iPhoto Library .photolibrary/._iPhotoMain.db: Input/output error
rm: /Volumes/Iomega_HDD/.Trashes/501/iPhoto Library .photolibrary/._Library6.iPhoto: Input/output error
rm: /Volumes/Iomega_HDD/.Trashes/501/iPhoto Library .photolibrary/._ProjectDBVersion.plist: Input/output error
rm: /Volumes/Iomega_HDD/.Trashes/501/iPhoto Library .photolibrary/._Projects.db: Input/output error
rm: /Volumes/Iomega_HDD/.Trashes/501/iPhoto Library .photolibrary/Database/._DataModelVersion.plist: Input/output error
rm: /Volumes/Iomega_HDD/.Trashes/501/iPhoto Library .photolibrary/Database/._tmSync.plist: Input/output error
rm: /Volumes/Iomega_HDD/.Trashes/501/iPhoto Library .photolibrary/Database/apdb/._BigBlobs.apdb-journal: Input/output error
rm: /Volumes/Iomega_HDD/.Trashes/501/iPhoto Library .photolibrary/Database/apdb/._Faces.db-journal: Input/output error
rm: /Volumes/Iomega_HDD/.Trashes/501/iPhoto Library .photolibrary/Database/apdb/._History.apdb-journal: Input/output error
rm: /Volumes/Iomega_HDD/.Trashes/501/iPhoto Library .photolibrary/Database/apdb/._ImageProxies.apdb-journal: Input/output error
rm: /Volumes/Iomega_HDD/.Trashes/501/iPhoto Library .photolibrary/Database/apdb/._Library.apdb-journal: Input/output error
rm: /Volumes/Iomega_HDD/.Trashes/501/iPhoto Library .photolibrary/Database/apdb/._lockfile.pid: Input/output error
rm: /Volumes/Iomega_HDD/.Trashes/501/iPhoto Library .photolibrary/Database/apdb/._Properties.apdb-journal: Input/output error
rm: /Volumes/Iomega_HDD/.Trashes/501/iPhoto Library .photolibrary/Database/apdb/BigBlobs.apdb-journal: Input/output error
rm: /Volumes/Iomega_HDD/.Trashes/501/iPhoto Library .photolibrary/Database/apdb/Faces.db-journal: Input/output error
rm: /Volumes/Iomega_HDD/.Trashes/501/iPhoto Library .photolibrary/Database/apdb/History.apdb-journal: Input/output error
rm: /Volumes/Iomega_HDD/.Trashes/501/iPhoto Library .photolibrary/Database/apdb/ImageProxies.apdb-journal: Input/output error
rm: /Volumes/Iomega_HDD/.Trashes/501/iPhoto Library .photolibrary/Database/apdb/Library.apdb-journal: Input/output error
rm: /Volumes/Iomega_HDD/.Trashes/501/iPhoto Library .photolibrary/Database/apdb/Properties.apdb-journal: Input/output error
rm: /Volumes/Iomega_HDD/.Trashes/501/iPhoto Library .photolibrary/Database/apdb: Directory not empty
rm: /Volumes/Iomega_HDD/.Trashes/501/iPhoto Library .photolibrary/Database/DataModelVersion.plist/._ImageProxies.apdb-journal: Input/output error
rm: /Volumes/Iomega_HDD/.Trashes/501/iPhoto Library .photolibrary/Database/DataModelVersion.plist: Directory not empty
rm: /Volumes/Iomega_HDD/.Trashes/501/iPhoto Library .photolibrary/Database: Directory not empty
rm: /Volumes/Iomega_HDD/.Trashes/501/iPhoto Library .photolibrary/iLifeShared/apdb/._ImageProxies.apdb-journal: Input/output error
rm: /Volumes/Iomega_HDD/.Trashes/501/iPhoto Library .photolibrary/iLifeShared/apdb: Directory not empty
rm: /Volumes/Iomega_HDD/.Trashes/501/iPhoto Library .photolibrary/iLifeShared: Directory not empty
rm: /Volumes/Iomega_HDD/.Trashes/501/iPhoto Library .photolibrary/iPhotoAux.db: Input/output error
rm: /Volumes/Iomega_HDD/.Trashes/501/iPhoto Library .photolibrary/iPhotoMain.db: Input/output error
rm: /Volumes/Iomega_HDD/.Trashes/501/iPhoto Library .photolibrary/Masters: Input/output error
rm: /Volumes/Iomega_HDD/.Trashes/501/iPhoto Library .photolibrary/Previews/Database/apdb/._ImageProxies.apdb-journal: Input/output error
rm: /Volumes/Iomega_HDD/.Trashes/501/iPhoto Library .photolibrary/Previews/Database/apdb: Directory not empty
rm: /Volumes/Iomega_HDD/.Trashes/501/iPhoto Library .photolibrary/Previews/Database: Directory not empty
rm: /Volumes/Iomega_HDD/.Trashes/501/iPhoto Library .photolibrary/Projects.db: Input/output error
rm: /Volumes/Iomega_HDD/.Trashes/501/iPhoto Library .photolibrary/Thumbnails: Input/output error
rm: /Volumes/Iomega_HDD/.Trashes/501/iPhoto Library .photolibrary: Directory not empty

First, never try to empty the Trash in the shell. It's dangerous and unnecessary, and as you've discovered, it doesn't always work.
It's possible that the external drive is malfunctioning, but before you draw that conclusion, quit iPhoto and try again to empty the Trash.

Want to run an archive and install, but can't empty trash to free space

I don't know where to begin... at some point recently something caused problems with several applications, so after trying to repair permissions and repair disk with no luck, I decided to archive & install. Now I want the old problems back: Word/Excel/Photoshop will not open because of some library error (Carbonlib?), and my network settings keep going screwy such that if my computer goes to sleep, I couldn't pick up my wireless signal anymore without restarting (and then ta-da, there it was like there was never any problem).
So in trying to archive and install I keep stalling at the very beginning... I'll leave it for hours hoping it would proceed but it wouldn't. I've repaired disk several times, with the same errors ultimately coming up. So without being able to archive and install I figured I'd better back everything up and do an erase & install. Started backing things up in prep for moving them onto a server, but when I plugged the server in, my computer said it couldn't get on. Same exact server wire had just come out of my work computer which connects just fine. So now I've got duplicates of all my files on the desktop, so I try to trash them and when I select 'empty trash' or 'secure empty trash', I get the box that says "preparing to empty trash" and then everything except my wallpaper goes away, and eventually comes back as if I've restarted. Now I definitely can't archive and install because with duplicate copies of all my files I have only 1.7gb available and need 1.9 to install just the required files.
I'm at a total loss! Incidentally, my ipod won't mount if I try to plug it in.
Are there other options in disk utility that I can try? I don't know enough to feel comfortable just trying something, and I don't know what the "Restore" option does.
Oh goodness, I hope somebody knows something that can help me out of this.

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=3366422
Odd, the link works for me.
-mj
[email protected]

Can't empty trash on my i-mac OS X 10.6.8

I'm not able to empty the "trash" on my i-Mac 10.6.8. I have tried several options on the internet, but none have been successful. Help please.
Tom

Hello tpplus12,
Welcome to the Apple Support Communities!
I understand that you are having difficulty emptying the trash on your Mac running Snow Leopard. To help assist you in this situation, I would recommend reading over and working through the steps located in the attached article.
You can't empty the Trash or move a file to the Trash - Apple Support
Have a great day,
Joe

Can't empty Trash due to error codes

I have begun getting error codes when I attempt to empty Trash. For example:
+"The operation can’t be completed because an unexpected error occurred (error code -8003)."+
Of course, if I use SuperEmptyTrash, I can empty Trash. But, I should not have to do it that way.
I would appreciate any insight into what may be happening here.

Profinite wrote:
Since these two external drives had been backed up previously, this process must have resulted in Time Machine deleting the previous backups of these two external drives.
I don't think so. When adding an item to the Exclude list, previous backups should not be deleted. And even when Time Machine does delete something, it's deleted immediately. TM never moves an item to the Trash.
So I suspect that something else is going on. Try disconnecting all of your external drives and unmount all disk images. Do you then still have the same problem emptying the Trash?

Can't empty trash in Finder

Hey out there!
I can't seem to empty trash in Finder (Mt. Lion). It starts deleting 45k items, and then simply quits. I deleted a whole slew of apps and files which were transferred from my really OLD iMac. Did I overload it's capacity?
Thank you so much for any help.
Kind regards
LHM1948

Kappy,
Here is yet another stupid question. How do I "Unstuff the archive"? I am not even sure I know what the archive is... A little bit of knowledge on a computer, can be, indeed, a danger!
I did successfully download Trash It; thank you for that! Now I am reading the instructions to use it, and the first step is Unstuff the archive... AAAAARRRRRRRGGGGGHHHH.
Thank you for your patience.
LHM1948
PS Are you aware of the best way to find an iMac Mt. Lion expert without having to schlep to the Apple Store. There isn't one close to me, and I am going crazy trying to get a handle on this Mt.Lion!

Can't Empty Trash With Large Number of Files

Running OS X 10.8.3
I have a very large external drive that had a Time Machine backup on the main partition. At some point, I created a second partition, then started doing backups on the new partition. On Wed, I finally got around to doing some "housecleaning" tasks I'd been putting off. As part of that, I decided to clean up my external drive. So... I moved the old, unused and unwanted Backups.backupdb that used to be the Time Machine backup, and dragged it to the Trash.
Bad idea.
Now I've spent the last 3-4 days trying various strategies to actually empty the trash and reclaim the gig or so of space on my external drive. Initially I just tried to "Empty Trash", but that took about four hours to count up the files just to "prepare to delete" them. After the file counter stopped counting up, and finally started counting down... "Deleting 482,832 files..." "Deleting 482,831 files..." etc, etc... I decided I was on the path to success, so left the machine alone for 12-14 hours.
When I came back, the results were not what I expected. "Deleting -582,032 files..." What the...?
So after leaving that to run for another few hours with no results, I stopped that process. Tried a few other tools like Onyx, TrashIt, etc... No luck.
So finally decided to say the **** with the window manager, pulled up a terminal, and cd'ed to the .Trash directory for my UID on the USB volume and did a rm -rfv Backups.backupdb
While it seemed to run okay for a while, I started getting errors saying "File not found..." and "Invalid file name..." and various other weird things. So now I'm doing a combination of rm -rfing individual directories, and using the finder to rename/cleanup individual Folders when OSX refuses to delete them.
Has anyone else had this weird overflow issue with deleting large numbers of files in 10.8.x? Doesn't seem like things should be this hard...

I'm not sure I understand this bit:
If you're on Leopard 10.5.x, be sure you have the "action" or "gear" icon in your Finder's toolbar (Finder > View > Customize Toolbar). If there's no toolbar, click the lozenge at the upper-right of the Finder window's title bar. If the "gear" icon isn’t in the toolbar, selectView > Customize Toolbar from the menubar.
Then use the Time Machine "Star Wars" display: Enter Time Machine by clicking the Time Machine icon in your Dock or select the TM icon in your Menubar.
And this seems to defeat the whole purpose:
If you delete an entire backup, it will disappear from the Timeline and the "cascade" of Finder windows, but it will not actually delete the backup copy of any item that was present at the time of any remaining backup. Thus you may not gain much space. This is usually fairly quick
I'm trying to reclaim space on a volume that had a time machine backup, but that isn't needed anymore. I'm deleting it so I can get that 1GB+ of space back. Is there some "official" way you're supposed to delete these things where you get your hard drive space back?

Can't empty trash and icon never indicates files are in the trash.

What could cause this? Despite having several files in the trash, its icon never changes (always shows an empty trash) and the "Empty Trash" option is dimmed (that is, cannot be used). OnyX ws the only solution but it's temporary. What's the fix I should apply to Mac OS X?
Also, why is it that every time I want to move a file to trash I must enter my password? It's annoying to say the least.
Please help me as I don't want to go through the royal pains of installing everything again, Windows-style. I think Mac OS X should be better than that. Or is it? Let's hear it, guys and gals!
Thanks!
Fernando

Sorry, I posted my last message in the wrong thread without realizing it. This is what I meant to post:
Repairing the permissions of a home folder in Lion is a complicated procedure. I don’t know of a simpler one that always works.
Launch the Terminal application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Terminal in the page that opens.
Drag or copy — do not type — the following line into the Terminal window, then press return:
chmod -R -N ~
The command will take a noticeable amount of time to run. When a new line ending in a dollar sign ($) appears below what you entered, it’s done. You may see a few error messages about an “invalid argument” while the command is running. You can ignore those. If you get an error message with the words “Permission denied,” enter this:
sudo !!
You'll be prompted for your login password, which won't be displayed when you type it. You may get a one-time warning not to screw up.
Next, 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. You’re not going to reset the password.
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.

Can't empty trash in iPhoto 9.1.1

At some point, probably since upgrading to iPhoto 9 ('11), I stopped being able to empty the iPhoto trash.
When I bring up the trash album, it shows the number of items in the trash (currently up to 2300), but there are no photos listed. Clicking Empty Trash from any of three places - inside the trash folder, by right-clicking on Trash, or under the "iPhoto" menu - all do nothing except generate a system beep.
Deleting new photos makes the number of items in the Trash increase, but it seems like iPhoto thinks there's nothing in the Trash.
I tried to figure out where iPhoto stores Trash info. The best I could find was /iPhoto Library/Database/Albums/trashAlbum.apalbum which is modified regularly, but that's a nearly empty file (only 4KB, whereas most other "albums" are larger).
I've tried all the different recovery options (Repair library, repair permissions, recover orphaned photos, etc) 3 or 4 times each, but no change.
Rebuilding my library from scratch isn't an option. I can't lose 7 years' worth of comments and things.
Any ideas??

Download iPhoto Library Manager and use its rebuild function. This will create a new library based on data in the albumdata.xml file. Not everything will be brought over - no slideshows, books or calendars, for instance - but it should get all your albums and keywords back.
Because this process creates an entirely new library and leaves your old one untouched, it is non-destructive, and if you're not happy with the results you can simply return to your old one.
Regards
TD

Can't empty trash "501"

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