Cannot move files to the trash bin

Hello,
I recently upgraded from Snow Leopard to Mountain Lion and have since also changed the administrator on our MacBook Pro. My account (formerly the admin) can no longer move files to the trash bin. My wife's account (now admin) has no problem doing so. When I try dragging a file to the trash I get "Finder wants to make changes, type the administrator's name and password to allow this."
Not something I wan't to be doing every time. Please help.
Thanks,
the RouleauFamily

Thanks for your reply. The permissions looked fine.
Here is the fix I found at http://www.thexlab.com/faqs/trash.html which worked:
If the affected account is:
Then type the Terminal command:
Your Admin account:
sudo rm -ri ~/.Trash
Another user account:
sudo rm -ri /Users/user_name/.Trashwhere user_name is the short name of the affected account.
Warmly,
Olivier

Similar Messages

I have dragged 2 files to the trash bin but I cannot delete them from the trash bin. It keeps telling me these files are in use when they are not. How do I delete these files? One is a txt file and the other is an xls file

I have dragged 2 files to the trash bin but I cannot delete them from the trash bin. It keeps telling me these files are in use when they are not. How do I delete these files? One is a txt file and the other is an xls file

From the Finder menu select 'Secure Empty Trash'. If this or the suggestion above doesn't resolve the problem take a look at the various suggestions in this link:
http://www.thexlab.com/faqs/trash.html

Files in the trash bin that are in use and I don't want delete it !!

Hi,
i have put files in the trash bin by mistake and i could not solve a problem . this files are in use by Parallels and I could not move it or empty the trash bin .....
(files are in library - startup items - Parallels )
What coul I do,
Any help welcom,
Thanks,
David

Exactly, there is a file that I cannot move : prl_dhcpd !! if a try to move it to it's original folder, I see the same file in the folder, and If I try to move it, I have a permission message (ok, i'm not the owner of this file, it's a system file), but even if I change the file permission, the file is in use, and i could not replace it.
I could move this file from the trash bin on my desktop, but i could not delete it, because the system sa it's in use .....
So i have a duplicate file unerable !
Any help Welcom, Thx

I have sent a file to the trash bin. When I come to empty the trash bin everything goes out except this one particular file and I get a note saying the file is 'in use' but it is not. How can I delete this file from trash?

I have a Macbook Pro with OS X Lion 10.7.2. I have sent a work file to the trash bin along with many other files. When I empty the trash this one particular file remains and I get a message that this file is still in use. I have tried returning the file to my documents, opening it, closing it and then sending it to trash and again I try to empty trash but the same message comes up - Q - How can I trash this file permanently?

First just try logging out and back in. Whatever is holding on to it may not be running after the logout thus freeing it so you can trash it after logging back in.
You might also try Trash It!
Lastly, look at the following for suggestions:
The X Lab: Solving Trash Problems

Why does Mail say that I cannot move items to the trash????

I cannot delete email the "normal" way. When I set up my POP account, it created a second trash folder with the same name as my mail account. There are thus two folders in my Trash can - "On My Mac" and the one named after my email account. When I try to delete any mail it says that I cannot move anything to the Trash folder for my Mail account. I have to DRAG all email I wish to delete to the "On My Mac" Trash folder. ????????
I just want to be able to click delete and have email go away! Why is this not working?
Thanks.

Select the mailbox you wish to correct, then select "Mailbox > Rebuild"
Then do a PRAM reset:
PRAM RESET
Zap the PRAM
Shut down the computer.
Locate the following keys on the keyboard: Command, Option, P, and R. You will need to hold these keys down simultaneously in step 4.
Turn on the computer.
Press and hold the Command-Option-P-R keys. You must press this key combination before the gray screen appears.
Hold the keys down until the computer restarts and you hear the startup sound for the second time.
Release the keys.

I can not move files to the trash.

I can not move files to the trash. When I drag the file to the trash it does not move, but it does appear in the trash and when I empty it, the file is erased. When I go back to my files, the file I just deleted is still there. I keep getting the "startup disk is full" message so I need to delete files, but I can't. Anyone know a solution to this?

try getting a external drive such as a usb flash drive or a hard drive to transfer the files from the startup disk, and free up space.
hope this helps!

Xpost - Automator can't move files to the trash?

*Cross posted from the 10.6 board.*
A very simple Automator script that I've used for some time now on several 10.5 machines refuses to work under 10.6. The contents are:
*Find Finder Items*
-on Desktop
-Whose size is less than 1 gb
*Move Finder Items to Trash*
That's it. This has worked and continues to work on all the 10.5 machines, but the one that I've upgraded to 10.6 now gives an error which states:
"The Action 'Move Finder Items to Trash" has encountered an error. Check the action's properties and try running the workflow again."
HALP! I'm not sure why this wouldn't work, I've redone the workflow on the affected machine to make sure there's no conflict between Automator versions, and still no joy. Any ideas?

I don't know much about Automator. However I have noticed that the action “Find Finder Items on Desktop whose size is less than 1 GB” seems to consider the Desktop itself as one of its items, which is the reason why the next action, “Move Finder Items to Trash”, becomes impossible. So just add the condition “whose name is not Desktop” to the first action.
Btw, your Automator script could be replaced with the following one-line AppleScript script:
*tell application "Finder" to move (items of desktop whose size is less than 1.0E+9) to trash*
Message was edited by: Pierre L.

Automator can't move files to the trash?

A very simple Automator script that I've used for some time now on several 10.5 machines refuses to work under 10.6. The contents are:
*Find Finder Items*
- on Desktop
- Whose size is less than 1 gb
*Move Finder Items to Trash*
That's it. This has worked and continues to work on all the 10.5 machines, but the one that I've upgraded to 10.6 now gives an error which states:
"The Action 'Move Finder Items to Trash" has encountered an error. Check the action's properties and try running the workflow again."
HALP! I'm not sure why this wouldn't work, I've redone the workflow on the affected machine to make sure there's no conflict between Automator versions, and still no joy. Any ideas?

Alicea, have a look at the post I made in the AppleScript forum here.

I cannot delete a file from the document folder. I can move it to the trash and then empty the trash, but when I go back to the documents folder it is still there.

I cannot delete a file from the documents folder. I can move it to the trash and then empty it, but when I go back to the documents folder, the file is still there.

Gay,
I wonder what your computing environment is. Is your account being administrated by another account? Are you working in an account subject to "Parental Controls"?
Jerry

Why cannot I move any files to the trash from my external drive?

I have Snow Leopard 10.6.8 and an external hard drive Toshiba. I've formatted it to be used with OSX and have copied lots of files there for use as a third hard drive to save files on. But I now have found out that I cannot delete any files from this drive. When I try to move any type of file to the trash, I get this message: "The operation can’t be completed because an unexpected error occurred (error code -50)." I've checked Info on these files and they are not locked. Can someone help me with this?

http://www.thexlab.com/faqs/trash.html. BTW, the error is: paramErr = -50, /*error in user parameter list*/, which usually indicates a permissions problem. CMD+I on that disk's Desktop icon, select ignore ownership, then try again.

Lost the "recent file" folder in the dock next to the trash bin and cannot figure out how to replace it. Any thoughts?

Lost the "recent file" folder in the dock next to the trash bin and cannot figure out how to replace it. Any thoughts?

First thing I would do is look in the trash and if it isn't there look in the System Preferences and I am sure it will be in there.
Cheers
Don

[SOLVED] Cannot move file to trash

Hi
When i try to delete files they are deleted but they do not appear in trash bin. So when i click on "Move to trash" the pop up window appear and say:
Cannot move file to trash, do you want to delete immediately?
What am i doing wrong?
Last edited by Shark (2011-03-09 08:23:27)

@stlarxh
I have already got installed gvfs. Interesting thing is that the Trash folder under ~/.local/share/Trash
have the following permission:
drwx------ 4 root root 4096 Feb 27 21:57 Trash
On Ubuntu it has this permissions:
drwx------ 5 saso 1000 4096 Sep 20 10:19 Trash
If i change permission from root to my username i can't delete files at all. Has this got something with group 1000? How can i add group 1000?
@emk
my fstab:
# /etc/fstab: static file system information
# <file system> <dir> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>
devpts /dev/pts devpts defaults 0 0
shm /dev/shm tmpfs nodev,nosuid 0 0
/dev/sda3 / ext4 defaults 0 1
/dev/sda1 /media/Razno ext4 users,auto,errors=remount-ro 0 1
/dev/sda5 swap swap defaults 0 0
/dev/sda3 is ArchLinux, /dev/sda1 is a custom partition.

HT1526 I'm trying to delete files from the trash and an .InProgress file in Time Machine that cannot be moved to the trash. I cannot unmount the TM disk either. If I use the chflags -R nouchg command, I get a "Resource busy" message. Any suggestions?

I've got one or maybe two problems. Time Machine routinely crashes and there is a file in the TM folder that is an .InProgress file at the end of successful backups. Can't delete it, even using various sudo commands in Terminal. These come back with a "Resource busy" message.
Similarly, there is a Microsoft Office alias in my trash that will not delete, again including various delete or Terminal commands. Also "Resource busy"
I can't reformat the TM volume since it cannot unmount and it also cannot unmount the whole disk, which contains some other backup files I'd rather keep.
Any suggestions?
Mike

I'm not sure I can be very helpful since I was doing a lot of things and ultimately the problems went away. But one thing that definitely seemed to help was to shut down, restart, do something, shut down again and repeat. So with a clean start, try to move the file to the trash. If that works, shut down restart and look to see if it is still in the trash. Empty the trash. Shut down if it appears to empty and then restart. It seemed sometimes that the computer was doing what I wanted then something was overriding this and restoring. The shutdowns immedately after I could do something but before it engaged an override operation seemed to keep this from happening.
Sorry to not have more to offer but...

How do you move a file to the trash with ONE keystroke (Can't believe I'm wasting time on this!)

Everytime I want to send a file to the trash, I have to either perform some kind of key combination/shortcut or use the trackpad/mouse, right click and select "move to trash", or drag the file(s) to the trash! This is absolutely ridiculous. Why can't I just press the delete button??? I cannot take it anymore! It's such a waste of time.
After some research, I finally found a post with the answer I was looking for from user par larsson
Re: How delete a file in mac os x?
"You can also go into System Preferences and make a new keyboard shortcut. I turned one of the function keys into a "Move To Trash" key.
1. No need to use the mouse for something that should be simple and quick.
2. Single button press just like in Windows."
Seriously!
Now the problem is how do you do this?
1. I went to the system prefs > Keyboard > Keyboard and checked "use F1, F2, etc... as standard function keys.."
2. Under keyboard shortcuts, I selected "Application Shortcuts" and clicked on the "+" sign
3. I selected the finder application, entered "Move To Trash" in the action box, and F12 as the key (because it's next to "delete")
That did not work. It just opened the dashboard instead.
4. I went back to "keyboard shortcuts" and found F12 was already assigned to open the dashboard. So I unchecked it and tried again.
That still didn't work. I would select the file to be moved to trash, press F12, and after an error "beep" sound, the last file in the folder was highlighted.

Duuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuude!!!!!!!!!!!! YOU DID IT! I cannot believe it!
I changed "Move To Trash" to "Move to Trash" and selected a file. I had lost all hope, so I took a minute to prepare myself for yet another moment of deep frustration. Then I pressed F10, and bang! the file was trashed!!! It took me a couple minutes to actually believe what just happened. Thank you so much! If I could, I would "like" you as many times as I can physically hit the "Liked" button!
PS: what the heck is wrong with Apple though??? Wrong instructions, incorrect help instructions on their own site. The chances of figuring this out before having a nervous breakdown were like one in a million (approximately, I did not actually do the math). Last week, the keyboard and the trackpad stopped responding on my brand new macbook pro for a couple hours. I was not the only one with this problem. Apparently, this was from a design flaw, which means it could happen again at any time. iMovie doesn't work. TextEdit keeps crashing all the time. Emptying the trash can take hours.
Since 2000, I bought a PMac G4 Quicksilver, a used PMac G3 Blue, a used iBook G4, a used Pismo PBook G3, a used Graphite iMac G4, a used iMac G3 (green, 233MHz I think) and I already had more problems with this brand new macbook pro than will all the other macs combined... For such an expensive machine, with 16GB of RAM, that's a little dissapointing, especially from Apple. Maybe I'm just not lucky.
Anyways, thanks again! Best moment of 2014!

I am trying to open space in my macbook hard drive, so I deleted files and after emptying the trash bin the amount of Gigs didn't increase, why? Where can I go and delete those files?

I am trying to open space in my macbook hard drive, so I deleted files and after emptying the trash bin the amount of Gigs didn't increase, why? Where can I go and delete those files?

Did you do a secure empty trash? SHIFT COMMAND DELETE, they will be over wriiten. Are you deleting docs as they aren't much space, videos,pictures,music use much more space.
You can move those fiels to an external "archive" drive to save them then delete them from your internal drive.

Cannot move files to the trash bin

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for