Emptying trash takes forever

When I empty the trash in Lion it takes forever. There are 15000 -20000 files in the trash. They look to be coming from the Time Machine backups. Everytime I clean them out they come back. Any ideas?
Rex

I am right clicking on the trash icon and selecting "Empty Trash". I think I was able to find the issue. I deleted my backups on my airport and recreated them. Once I did that it resolved the issue.

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Secure Empty Trash - takes forever with SSD

I've installed 2 x 256 GB Samsung SSDs that I am now thinking of using as my bootdrive. But as I was playing around with them, I noticed that they turn into the slowest turtles when secure emptying the trash. Having done some investigating, one issue appears to be OS X's habit of zeroing the respective areas 7 times to meet the DoD standards. (I believe that is not the only issue though as secure emptying also takes much longer in my RAID 0 HD setup than it should for just writing that amount of data 7 times).
I couldn't find any clues on how to change this behaviour of overwriting 7 times. As a recent study suggests that most data is gone for good after a single overwrite on both, HDs and SSDs, I reckon that is good enough for me. Any ideas on how to change that behaviour? (I am aware of the regular emptying trash, what I want is a 'secure empty' with a single overwrite).

Thank you - that's very helpful.
I guess this response also implies there is no way to change the default behaviour of the GUI?

Emptying trash takes long

I mean forever. I once wanted to remove one backup from the Time Machine drive, but when it counted about 800 000 files to be removed and started counting them down very slowly (I have a fast drive), I force killed the Locum process responsible for trash emptying and removed the files from the terminal (rm -rf). Of course it took much less time. Then I wanted to empty the rest of the trash, but this takes very long ever since. It always has say 10 files to remove and keeps removing them one after one for about a minute (insanely slow). Today I wanted to erase about 400 files (about 8GB) from my class 6 SD card and it took about two hours till I lost my patience, stopped the emptying (clicking the stop button now) and formatted the card in my camera. I wonder if it is the rm-rf procedure Mac Leopard doesn't like or what? If you look at my specs you will notice a good CPU and a fast disk too, that's just insane, It has never happened before till I did rm -rf the first time. And of course the Locum process takes a LOT of CPU performance while erasing the files. please give a suggestion what to do. thanks

1) it didn't take forever with rm -rf which is good to know in some cases
2) now everything takes forever. Okay not forever but for example I just removed a small app and trash emptying took loooong again, about a minute instead of a split of second, it has never happened to me before on a slower mac, I guess something is wrong. the Locum process - whatever it means - ate up about 130% of CPU (a whole core + 30% of the other one). I will try to reboot and inform.
edit: ah i looked the word up, no i'm not talking about a locum tenens, it is the actual name of the process which cares for file moving and trash emptying. FYI /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/DesktopServicesPriv.framework/Resources/Locum
ohhhh you should see it counting down one after one, I tried to remove VLC player (mine 128MB), it the trash emptying window shows over 1200 files to be removed and counting down slowly at about 3files/second rate. weird. rebooting now.
Message was edited by: cukerko

Trying to move files to trash takes forever, and finder windows take forever to load files/apps

after recently installing Mackeeper (yes, I know..) and attempting to uninstall, my macbook pro 13" al. is taking forever to move a file to the trash, and it equally takes forever to open a finder window. running 10.6.8.

MacKeeper is an exception to the rule that system modifications should be uninstalled according to the developer's instructions. Although not generally recognized as such, MacKeeper is in fact a trojan, because the developer distributes an uninstaller that purports to delete it, but leaves behind something that causes popup ads to appear in the user’s web browser. Try following the instructions here:
how to uninstall MacKeeper « Phil Stokes
I can't personally vouch for the accuracy of those instructions, but others seem to have had success with them.

Emptying Trash takes ages ... :(

Hello,
I find recently that emptying my system trash takes a really long time ... Before, it used to be very quick with a noise of scrumpling up paper, now it just hangs and countsdown the item to be deleted super slow. I just upgraded to Lion but before was having the same issue with Snow Leopard.
I have installed Trashit - which works fine - but I don't see why I should have to use a 3rd party app to sort out my problem and I would prefer to just drag to the icon as I'm meant to.
Any ideas?
Thank you -
M

Thanks for your response, AnaMusic - much appreciated I shouldn't have been so quick off the mark to post - I found the response here about 4 seconds later with exactly the same title and tags... doh !

Why does SECURE EMPTY TRASH take so long (several days)?

I am using OS 10.3.9. I didn't empty the trash for quite a while, and several days ago clicked SECURE EMPTY TRASH. The emptying process began but has not finished even now! Does it take THAT much longer when one uses SECURE EMPTY TRASH? I see that the little message window for Trash says:
Item to delete: 114,158 This number hasn't gone down now for several minutes.
Several times I have stopped the Empty Trash process to shut the computer down or just because I wanted to stop it, but it seem to me that after "Emptying the Trash" has been going on for so long, it ought to be finished by now. I welcome any sunlight you can shed on this. Thank you.
— Lorna in Southern California

When you choose to Secure Empty Trash, the system
must overwrite the area where those items area a
minimum of 7 times for it to be considered secure.
When you have that many files in the Trash, this can
take quite some time.
So, unless you have something that is confidential in
the Trash, your best option is to Empty Trash
normally.
Mulder
If my answer helped solve your problem, please
consider awarding some points. Why
Reward Points?
OK, and thank you. You have answered my question; I now won't be worrying that something is awfy. The Secure Empty Trash is still emptying and it is down to about 77,000 items. I have clicked the YES, MY QUESTION HAS BEEN ANSWERED button and I appreciate your reassurance.
— Lorna in Southern California

Empty trash takes a long time!!

I've got a 18.86GB trash and I can't empty it!!!
I left it there for a long while and It still doesn't empty!!
Is there any way to force empty the trash without damaging my system/Hard-drive? (I tried Secure empty trash... Same result)
I downloaded Force Empty Trash from Macmaps.com, will it damage my system/Hard-drive?
looking for answers from a master!!!

I do hope that you haven't put sleepimage there !!
The trash is actually a directory (.Trash) in your home directory.
Open Terminal and enter:
$ cd .Trash
$ ls -lase (This will then list the contents of Trash).
You can then delete files directly from Trash using:
$ rm <filename>
For more information on the usage of "rm", type:
$ man rm
Note that this command is very powerful and should not be used in the wrong place, or with the wrong wildcards!
Cheers,
Rodney

Emptying the Trash takes forever...

I bought a new 20" iMac there last month and have Leopard 10.5.6 installed. I have noticed however that emptying the trash can take up to an hour+. Does anyone know the reason for this? On my old PowerMac G5 i can have the trash emptied in seconds no matter what is in it.
Any help would be great!
Thanks

Oh my god!! why didn't i think of that... i was there thinking of every other reason this would be happening but the correct and simplest one. Just checked it off.
Thanks for your help!

TRASH TAKES FOREVER TO EMPTY

Whenever I want to dump the trash, it takes more than an hour or even longer. Not really a large amount and it also creates a lot of heat. What gives? Do I have a problem HD?

I have this problem as well.
In fact my problem is compounded because I also had one of the time machine bugs where the backup on my external drive would attempt to do an 80GB backup (instead of continuing where it left off) and would take 1.5 hrs to do the first 460 MB of that backup then stall.
My idea was 'ok I'll remove the old time machine backup and start again'. Then I found out rm -rf /Volumes/backup/Backup etc doesn't work because of permissions. So I went into Time Machine and manually deleted the old backups (by this stage I just wanted the old backups off)
Then all of this old backup data went to trash and trash is taking an eternity to empty. I can't simply format the external HD because I have 80GB of music on it.
I decided to copy the music to my PC, so I deleted my PC backup of all my MP3s then when I tried to copy my music from my mac to my PC I got ANOTHER BUG about copying files (error code 8072 bug).
So basically 3 bugs in a row from Apple has left me with no backups and no way to use time machine, no way to empty 1 million items in my trash, no way to safely copy my valuable mp3 data from my hard drive.
Not happy at all about bugs which should have been obvious in testing.

Emptying trash takes hours!!!

i have a brand-new 17" macbook pro. i'm moving all my data from an imac & in the process have had much cause to empty the trash. but more than half the time, when i empty the trash it says it's preparing to delete over one thousand items, and it takes hours! other times it behaves normally.
i worry that something must be wrong... does anybody else have this problem & if so is there anything to be done? should i be frightened?

"i have a brand-new 17" macbook pro."
Then take advantage of the 90 days of FREE phone tech support from Apple before it runs out (unless you have purchased AppleCare).
!http://i50.tinypic.com/izvwo1.gif!

Trash takes forever to emtpy

Hi folks,
i have a very strange problem on my mac pro: if i want to empty my trash it takes at least 5 minutes, even takes longer if i have more or bigger files to delete.
Other strange thing is when i delete a new empty folder the status window shows me 4 files in the trash.
I tried to repair the rights and also reinstalled the 10.5.7 combo update.
Message was edited by: vie_q10

Start with http://www.thexlab.com/faqs/trash.html

Trash takes to long to empty

Since I installed Snow Leopard, emptying the trash takes forever. Does anyone know if this is normal? No matter if it's 1 file or 800. It takes sometimes hours.
Please gives us your thoughts.
Thanks

From the Finder menu bar, select Finder ▹ Preferences ▹ Advanced and uncheck the box labeled Empty Trash securely.

Does secure empty trash save disk space?

Secure empty trash takes so much longer than just emptying the trash. Is secure empty trash just used to prevent files from being recovered, or does it actually save disk space on the iMac?

I am aware that everyone said that it doesn't save any disk space, because I read through the thread.
HOWEVER.
I had gotten down to 500 mb of disk space and was going crazy trying to delete photos and movies.
Finally I read about the secure delete, tried it. It took 24 hours, and then i hat 36 free gigabites.
THIRTY SIX GIGS OF MEMORY THAT I DIDNT HAVE BEFORE.
Only thing is I have no idea why, because everyone else says that it doesnt clear space.

How 'EMPTY TRASH'? I know the 'keybord shortcut'. Isn't there a E-Z pulldown way?

HOW EMPTY TRASH?
I would just like to know an easy way to pull down something from the screen top and empty my trash.
I only know 2 ways to EMPTY TRASH in Snow Leopard:
1) I know the KEYBOARD SHORTCUT for EMPTY TRASH.
& I know how to do it this way:
2) OPEN TRASH BASKET. Then go to top of screen to PULL down APPLE's 'HELP' & TYPE 'EMPTY TRASH' : then click on "EMPTY TRASH" when it appears as the answer (It won't give me the darn answer! it just does it when i click for it to give me the answer!). This empties the trash.
& PS: WHAT is the other selection in Apple 'HELP' when i type 'Empty Trash' it also offers this: 'SECURE EMPTY TRASH"?
I even went to 'Mac Basics' but apparently my question is just to basic for them to show an obvious answer.
Thanks.

thelnukus wrote:
What is the difference between 'Empty Trash' and 'Secure Empty Trash' ??
For "Secure Empty Trash" read: OS X Mountain Lion: Prevent deleted files from being read
"When you delete files, the disk space that the files occupied is available for use. However, until that section of the disk is overwritten with new data, the information from the file is still on the disk and can be retrieved by programs that read raw data.
If you want to delete files that contain sensitive information, you can place them in the Trash, and then use Secure Empty Trash to overwrite the information so it is completely removed.
Drag the items into the Trash, and then choose Finder > Secure Empty Trash.
Using Secure Empty Trash takes a bit longer than simply emptying the Trash.
If you are using disk encryption, you can set it to automatically overwrite your deleted files.
If you want to erase a hard disk and be sure no information is left, you can use one of the secure erase options in Disk Utilities. For more information on using secure erase, see Disk Utility Help."
Also: OS X Lion: Remove files and folders from your computer

Am having problems emptying my trash. Takes forever and then the contents don't delete. What must i do?

a) Am having problems emptying my trash.
Takes forever and then the contents don't delete.
What must i do? My trash box is full and it's affecting my operating system?
b) Does the items in trash slow down my operating system?

Abu,
There may be something going on with your ownership if the Trash if the files aren't deleting. OK, let's try this:
Launch Terminal (found in Applications>Utilities folder). At the $ prompt, type (or paste):
ls -la
and hit Return. In the right hand column, you should see .Trash listed and to the left, you will see the "owners" name (in my case, clintondyches). If the owners name shows as root then the following will fix the problem. At the same $ prompt enter
sudo chown yourusername .Trash
(replace yourusername with your actual user name - such as mine being clintondyches).
At the prompt $ again, type or paste:
ls -la
If this was successful, you should see yourusername instead of root.
You should be in business now. You should have ownership of .Trash and be able to empty your Trash, drag items to it and empty it, etc.
Call back and let me know...
Clinton

Emptying trash takes forever

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