Empty trash quickly

I have over 100,000 files in my trash. I know there's a command to empty the trash or delete all the files at once. Can someone let me know what this is or if there is another way to get rid of these files quickly?
Does TM copy trashed files? That could be the reason I have no more room and I get errors trying to backup with SuperDuper.
The problem that led to this - I tried to completely erase the files from an external drive. I got a message "unable to unmount disk" or something like that. So I erased the files. I guess I should have gotten to the bottom of why I couldn't use disk utility to erase my files. Any thoughts?
Thanks!

Can someone let me know what this is or if there is another way to get rid of these files quickly?
Press Shift, Command and Delete keys to empty Trash.
Does TM copy trashed files?
Time Machine backups everything, so trashed files are included in it

Similar Messages

  • Quicker way to empty trash

    hello,
    is there a faster way to empty the trash bin if there are an excessive amount of files to empty?
    for some reason, my boss refuses to empty the trash frequently and he now has over 150,000 files that are emptying, very slow process.
    thanks for any tips.

    There is alot of overhead in using the Finder's Empty Trash. For most trashes its not an issue, but when the number of items gets HUGE (like 150,000) it can slow things down alot. Mostly during the 'pre-flight' stage. Simple solution is to launch /Applications/Utilities/Terminal.app and type:
    rm -rf ~/.Trash
    killall Finder
    This will blow away the users trash folder and when the Finder comes back up, it will create a new trash folder for that user. 'rm -rf' doesn't have the preflight overhead that the Finder has. It just blows the folder and its contents away. I wouldn't recommend it for every day emptying of the trash, because the Finder's pre-flight actually has a purpose (catching files that are locked or you don't have permission to delete for example). For this one time thing, it is fine. Good luck...

  • Is it possible to create a secure empty trash shortcut in file menu?

    I have second finger click enabled so that I can quickly move files to the trash bin from the contextual menu. This is fine and dandy, however, for files containing sensitive informaton, I'd like to have a "Secure File Delete" option available (file bypasses the trash bin and is wiped after selecting said option).
    I've searched the threads and checked system prefs. Only options are to change "empty trash" to "secure empty trash". This wouldn't work as I have more files that are typically trashed and not wiped. It'd be nice to have it available as a convenience I suppose
    I know theres an app in the app store that offers this functionality. It's $3-4.
    So my question...is it possible to create such a contextual menu option on my own?
    heres an example of what I'm ltalking about...

    Create a new Service in Automator.
    Set it to receive files an folders in the Finder.
    Drag in an Ask for Confirmation action if you want it.
    Drag in a Run Shell Script action from the Utilities section of the Library.
    Set it to Pass Input as Arguments and Replace the code with:
    srm -r "$@"
    --That's ess-ar-em for Secure ReMove (just copy and paste)
    Save it and it will show up in the Services menu when you right-click on an item in the Finder.
    There are options you can add to it like -s for simple, -m for medium. The default (without options) is 35-pass Gutman.
    You can see what options are available by opening Terminal and typeing
    man srm
    Hit space to scroll down. Q to quit the man page.
    The Verbose and Interactive options won't work since you can respond.
    Note that depending on the algorithm chosen, it may take some time for the file/folder to disappear from the Finder view.

  • Error 8003 while trying to empty trash

    Hello,
    I'm getting this error quite often while emptying trash and I have to use application named Trash It. But is there any real solution to this?
    1) Yes, I have manually deleted Time Machine backup from external HD, actually many times (due to some problems it was backing up around 15-20 GBs daily quickly filling my drive). It never gave me this error though.
    2) I have used Disk Utility, it says there are no issues with HD and permissions were fixed.
    There is no pattern to this. Like today I wasn't able to delete two screenshots from desktop (moved to trash, error 8003) and I had to use Trash it. External HD wasn't even connected (Time Machine HD).
    Any ideas? At worst I hope Lion will be DVD burnable (I saw some tips on net how to do it) and I will be able to format HD and make clean install.
    Thanks.

    I always delete whole backup, never just particular file. Should be save according to site you pointed me at:
    Sometimes you may want to delete ALL backups.  Sounds easy, but like so many things, it depends on the circumstances:
    If there is other data on the volume, you can delete the Backups.backupdb folder, but it will take a very long time (as there may be from several hundred thousand to a few million files), and you may have trouble with locked files and/or permissions.  If possible, it’s much better to delete the backups individually as above, or copy the other data elsewhere temporarily, erase the volume with Disk Utility, and copy the data back.  (This is why a separate partition for Time Machine backups is advised.)
    I see the "you can". :-)

  • 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?

  • Is it possible to recover emptied trash?

    I recently tried to download family videos from a jvc everio to my macbook using drop dv.  the program worked however it placed a marketing stamp on all videos so i decided to delete the program thinking all the videos were still captured on the video camera.  I dragged all files related to drop dv to the trash bin and emptied the trash.  As I went back to try and view the files from the video camera, everything was gone.  I am heartbroken at this point as this camera contained approximately 5 years of video of my family.  If there is any hope in recovery I would greatly appreciate any and all advice anyone has.  Thank you.

    There are a number of programs that can recover deleted files, provided you didn't use "Secure Empty Trash".
    You're very first step is stop using the computer and camcorder NOW, to avoid overwriting any of the files you want to recover. 
    A quick web search finds this software:
    http://www.wondershare.com/data-recovery-mac/photo-recovery-mac.html
    http://www.wondershare.com/data-recovery/photo-recovery.html
    Ideally, you would first try downloading this onto a different computer and try to recover files from the camcorder, before then trying it on your Mac.
    A quick word of warning: I've never used this software, and I assume it's legit and not a trojan, but you should satisfy yourself of its authenticity before use.
    Good luck
    Bob

  • Secure Empty Trash Hung Up

    I selected "Secure Empty Trash" and the process started. It shows only six files to be deleted. However, it has hung up on those six files, now sitting there doing nothing for over an hour. It won't let me cancel the empty command. It won't let me delete anything else while it's running. It won't let me shut down the computer in a normal fashion.
    How can I get out of this?
    Thanks.
    Charley

    No. It's not necessary, since you've solved the problem.
    See these:
    Basic Tutorials on using a Mac,
    Mac 101: Mac Essentials,
    Anatomy of a Mac,
    MacFixIt Tutorials,
    MacTips,
    Quick Assist, and
    Take Control E-books.

  • Emptying Trash is rubbish

    It used to be, in the pre-snow leopard days, that emptying the trash was a non event. It just worked quickly and consistently.
    With snow leopard, it's a dangerous affair. It takes ages (5++ minutes), it hangs while it spawns a Locum process which runs at 198% CPU utilisation, the imac heats up, the fan switches in. Its rubbish.
    This has nothing to do with secure/unsecure empty. It's just as bad with both. The only safe way to empty trash is using the terminal command line.
    Surely It can't be that hard to implement.
    Has anyone experienced this and solved it. if so how
    TIA

    If a hard disk becomes too full it can make simple system operations take forever. Maybe what triggered this is your attempting to trash a certain large file you shouldn't have, and its being stuck in the process trying to delete each time you empty the trash. First take a look here*
    http://www.macmaps.com/diskfull.html
    To make sure your system is neither too full, and you haven't attempted to delete a system important file.
    One thing many delete thinking it is maintenance, which it is not, is system cache files. These actually are important for the system to run fast. Strangely, so called "maintenance" tools like Onyx, Macaroni and others do this as part of their "one trick pony" approaches to system maintenance. If you have used one these utilities, stop now, as you may have set up yourself for failure by using them
    - * links to my pages may give me compensation.
    Message was edited by: a brody

  • Empty trash has stopped working

    Running 10.7.6 Lion.
    Was doing a big clean up
    Of the hard drive and the Trash would not empty.
    Any advise appreciated.
    Thought that perhaps I should just upgrade to Mountain Lion.
    But, I'm happy with Lion; except for this.

    empty the trash bin regularly, or it might take ages to empty.
    First method:
    click the Trash bin while holding Alt(option) key; the Trash bin opens, and, while still holding the Alt key, from the Finder menu click "empty trash".
    Second method:
    use a Terminal command, and it will be empty very quickly:
    open Terminal and copy/paste following command in it then hit enter:
    sudo rm -Rf ~/.Trash/*
    Quit Terminal from the menu.

  • When I empty Trash, GB available goes DOWN!!!!

    Hello,
    Yeah my hardrive is small so it filled up quick. I moved alot of stuff onto my ipod as I don't use it that often. I also deleted alot of music straight out of itunes. Lots of footage out of iMovie and a few pictures I had outside of iphoto. It said I deleted about 7GB so showed 7 GB available in bottom of finder. Then when I go to empty Trash with finder open I notice that the 7GB free went down to 4.5GB just from emptying trash! this is really weird and I have noticed it a few times before.
    Whats going on with this?
    Please help
    Adam

    Sounds like your Directory Structures are corrupt and it's showing incorrect information in the Volume Header.
    Startup from your Install DVD/CD and Open Disk Utility from the Menu and then Run Disk First Aid on your HD.
    Alternatively if you can't place your hands on your DVD then restart your Mac and hold down the Shift key until the login screen appears with the words 'Safe Boot'
    This runs the File System Check Routines which Disk First Aid runs basically.
    If however you notice that the amount of space is still showing the incorrect amount then Find your CD/DVD and run Disk First aid from there.

  • Cannot empty Trash .....  Loosing Firefox Settings

    Hi
    I have 2 questions:
    1. I am having problem emptying Trash. I keep getting following message : "The operation cannot be completed because the item "wmphelp.htm" is locked. It message also has the yellow triangle with an exclamation mark.
    2. Every few weeks I loose all the settings (bookmarks etc ) on my Firefox browser. I am not sure how this happens but there does not seem to be a pattern.
    Hope someone can give me hints
    Thanks

    Sometimes it happens that the Finder just doesn't want to empty the trash anymore and says "The operation cannot be completed because the item "" is in use.". That's a good warning if it is true, but sometimes you want to get rid of an application and this warning appears even though the only thing running is the Finder. Usually after a restart you can delete it. But that is very time consuming and even then, it is sometimes still stuck not wanting to be deleted. There is a risky command that can be used in the Terminal that will empty the trash no matter what. Risky because a simple error in the syntax could erase a lot of stuff that you want to keep.
    There is a much easier and quicker way of forcing the Finder to empty the trash no matter what! It is done in the freeware customization and maintenance application OnyX (download @ http://www.titanium.free.fr/pgs/english.html ). Once you loaded OnyX and entered your administrator password, choose "Cleaning" in the top bar. Click on the "Trash" tab. You can now choose whether you want to "Delete" or to "Securely Delete" (by overwriting) and click Execute. That's it, it will force the Finder to empty the trash even if the files are in use!
    Also look at these links.
    You can't empty the Trash or move a file to the Trash in Mac OS X
    http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106272
    Mac OS X 10.2: Cannot delete an incomplete copy or download
    http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=107426
    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
    Download Trash It! v3.6.1 from:
    http://www.nonamescriptware.com/?page_id=5
    Download DropNuke from:
    http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/12664
     Cheers, Tom

  • Empty Trash is S-L-O-W.

    Can anyone explain and/or help me with this problem? I am running my iPhoto library on a 2TB, w/Firewire 800, external HD attached to my Mac Mini. I have updated my OS to the latest version and am running the latest version of iPhoto 09. (With all the yelling I hear about iPhoto 11, there is no way I am going to try that!) I am combining several Libraries into one which is why I bought a huge eHD.
    I have used Library Manager to combine very similiar libraries and had the "don't move duplicates" on when I did that. Afetr I combined them, my total went from about 15,000 to about 19,000 images. I then ran Duplicate Annilator which identified about 3,000+ duplicates. (Looks like Library Manager was not a total solution to eliminating the transfer of duplicates.) Empty Trash was slow. Then I ran the rebuild function in iPhoto using only the first button "rebuild thumbnails."
    Empty Trash is still slow. I only put between 80 and 120 images in the trash before I try and do the empty function. It works but this takes close to one hour. You can quickly see I have roughly 30 hours of work to get rid of 3,000 at 100 per pop. And since I don't sit here waiting, this may take me a week to empty all the duplicates out of the library. Not to mention that I don't really trust it too much.
    I also find it irritating that there is no progress bar on empty trash. My only way of knowing I have started is that before you punch the "are you sure" button it is glowing brighter back and forth. The minute I punch it, it stops glowing and goes very still which tells me the machine is doing the job. But there is no indication of how much has been done until suddenly the number of images in the trash goes to (0).
    Any idea how this can be speeded up?
    FYI: Once this is completed, I am going to ditch iPhoto and have already purchased a copy of Aperture. Most of my work is done in RAW.
    BTW: I just got my Apple TV working the the rec room and it is WONDERFUL to see the pictures on the big TV. Very cool.
    Thanks. Maury

    The problem is solved. I tried to run some more pictures and this time when it finished, I was left with a beach ball (NOT spinning) instead of my arrow pointer. What the ****? Could not make it go away but it did work for clicking. So I decided to RESTART and when the computer came back to life, the pointer had returned. So I loaded up another 120 images to trash. But now the trash was gone in just a few minutes. WOW. So I loaded 250. Again, gone is just a few minutes. WAZOO. This time I loaded up 650 pictures. Again gone in just a few minutes. GREAT.
    But I still do not get a progress bar, just the pulsating OK buttton which going still when I press it.
    I don't have any idea what was wrong or what fixed it. But RESTART did the trick.
    Thsi problem is solved.
    Maury

  • Disaster - Entire Pictures folder gone after "empty trash" command?

    Hello,
    This is a huge SOS. I'm working on several important projects that all require lots of photos, and have just spent the day working on more of them. I'm also a photographer and have hundreds and hundreds of photos in that folder of family, friends, other work projects etc. etc.
    Anyway, here are the details: I hadn't emptied the trash in a couple weeks because I've been reorganizing files, deleting a bunch of stuff and also weeding out early versions of photos as I tweaked and changed them. However, after a careful check through the trash, looking to see if I had the original AIFF file of a particular mp3 I'd made, I discovered about 10-15 photos in the trash that I didn't think should be there, I'd recently color coded them for a project I'm working on, and they were pics I'd paid for from a stock footage house. I figured either I'd forgotten that I'd made copies and it was actually ok for them to be there, or they somehow ended up in the trash by mistake. To be safe, I dragged them back into a particular folder within my Pictures folder on the sidebar. Then I emptied the trash, not with the quick key command, but by going to Finder>empty trash. (if that matters) The number of files in the trash surprised me, over 5000, but I figured I'd just had even more files in the trash than I realized... anyway, after I emptied the trash I went back to work on my project, or tried to - the Pictures folder was GONE from the sidebar. Just poof, gone. I did a search with Spotlight, Finder. No sign of the folder. And pls. don't tell me I should have backed them all up to another drive. Of course I should have but I work in AV and everytime I am finally able to buy a new hard drive, a new project ends up taking up it's space.
    quad G5 w/2.5 GB DDR2 SDRAM   Mac OS X (10.4.7)   haven't made a disc image or other inventory of the folder either, unfortunately

    Hi Alden
    I'm sure you are pretty annoyed with the whole thing, but at least you are in recovery mode now. If you add a folder to the sidebar it is just an alias, same as the dock, and if you dragged it to the trash, it would still not delete the files is was pointing to so it is a bit of a mystery how they got there.
    I have done a bit of extensive photo editing and sometimes I would create a new folder in the directory I was working in and call it 'throw' or something, so only after checking that i was keeping what i intended and verifying the redundant would I then drag that throw folder to the trash and empty it there and then as any doubt had been removed.
    Good luck with your recovery. I am glad you were able to be helped here.
    regards roam

  • Empty Trash extremely slow

    Lots of Fan noise and slowly counting down while emptying trash. We're talking one item per second here. Not good if you wanna flush 1600 items (used to take 1 sec in total).
    This is a clean install of 10.6. I did that because of the same problem after updating 10.5 to 10.6.
    Any 'fix' known?

    Try using the terminal. Go to
    ~.Trash
    and use the "rm" command, e.g., >> rm *
    if that does work see >> man rm
    for details using the "rm" command
    rm -rf *
    cures most any issues with the quickness.
    I hope this helps.

  • Aperture ate my picture files and they are not recoverable.  The guy at the Genius Bar told me to Trash the App, empty Trash, then go to Purchases and reinstall.  But Purchases says it is "Installed" so it does not let me download it again.  HELP!!!!

    Aperture ate my picture files and they are not recoverable.  The guy at the Genius Bar told me to Trash the App, empty Trash, then go to Purchases and reinstall.  But Purchases says it is "Installed" so it does not let me download it again.  HELP!!!!

    I typed Aperture into Spotlight and sure enough it did show up.
    It looks like it is supposed to be in Apps.
    But it is not there.
    So I clicked on the spotlight Aperture and it opened up the App!!!!
    But I do not know where it is to move it!
    How can I find it?
    While Aperture is running and you are seeing it in the Dock, ctrl-click (or right click) the Dock icon.
    You will see a contextual menu. Click on "Options", then select "Show in Finder".
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