I can't empty the trash or format the disk on my macmini (2009)

Hi,
I'm hoping someone can help. I deleted some old timemachine backups from my external hard-drive.
Since then I have been unable to empty the trash. I've tried 'trash it!', option>empty trash securely, restarting the computer, the terminal. Nothing has worked and unfortunatley I have no space at all left on my startup disk. I can't rename the files left in the trash either.
Luckily my mac is backed up so I decided to format the disk. When I go into disk utilities and click on erase and select the HD all the fields are faded out i.e. i can't select to erase the disk.
So I repaired the disk, verified the disk & tried again... no joy.
Any ideas would be fantastic!

Okay, I solved the problem so for anyone who has the same issue, this might help:
The reason I couldn't empty the trash was because I had dragged timemachine backup files I no longer needed into the trash, which screwed everything up.
Here's a video on how to delete timemachine backup files properly.
So basically, I solved the problem by formatting the external hard drive in disk utilities through my mac mini.

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I have a MacBookPro 2011. The Empty Trash command does not work. I mean I can not empty my trash

I have a MacBookPro 2011. The Empty Trash command does not work. I mean I can not empty my trash. what should I do? since now there are more than 5000 items accumulated in my trash.

Thanks everybody for your comments.
I just found a way out from the disscussion : I can't use empty trash or secure empty trash.
The same formula proposed by Zyriab solved my question.
This solved my questionRe: I can't use empty trash or secure empty trash.

HT1338 I can not empty my trash can my MacBook Pro can not save anything because of it.No room available error.what can I do? I also have Windows 7 on my Mac.

I can not empty my trash and my MacBook Pro can not save anything because there is no space left".No room available error."what can I do? I also have Windows 7 on my Mac.

If it were me, I'd get a new hard drive or SSD and put it in an external enclosure. Boot into the recovery partition, format the new drive (not the old one) and install the OS to it. Shut down the Mac, open it up, and swap the drives. You may be able to read your data from the old one externally if you're lucky. If you're very lucky you may be able to use Migration Assistant to move all your stuff to the new drive.
Look at ifixit.com for the exact procedure to get to the drive on your model. If it's a unibody it's pretty simple.
http://www.amazon.com/Sabrent-2-5-Inch-Aluminum-Enclosure-EC-TB4P/dp/B005EIGUD4/ ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1392154588&sr=8-3&keywords=2.5+enclosure

The MacBook Pro will not allow me to cut-and-paste to and from or to click-and-drag to the external drive. I can copy-and-paste, but then I must send the original to the trash, which doubles the time and effort. Is there any way to cut-and-paste?

I have recently switched from a PC to a MacBook Pro.
I have a large number of documents and photographs on a multiterrabite external drive, backed up on a second multiterrabite external drive.
Both external drives are formatted for MacIntosh. This has been verified by agents at an Apple store and also at Best Buy in two different cities.
This is the problem:
The MacBook Pro will not allow me to cut-and-paste to and from or to click-and-drag to the external drive. I can copy-and-paste, but then I must send the original to the trash, which doubles the time and effort. Is there any way to cut-and-paste?
Also, the MacBook Pro will not allow me to rename multiple documents or photographs. I can click-and-rename a single one, but this is impossibly time consuming. I can batch-rename in iPhoto, but when I transfer the photographs to the external drive, the rename does not transfer.
I’m reduced to using my wife’s Toshiba to cut-and-past, rename, and transfer documents. It works perfectly. Is there any way to do this on the MacBook Pro?
Thanks!
Roderick Guerry
[email protected]

Roderick Guerry wrote:
The MacBook Pro will not allow me to cut-and-paste to and from or to click-and-drag to the external drive. I can copy-and-paste, but then I must send the original to the trash, which doubles the time and effort. Is there any way to cut-and-paste?
No, this is a philosophical difference between Apple and Microsoft. Apple believes that it's dangerous to cut a file in case the user never pastes it; in that case the file is lost. Microsoft seems to not have this problem (if I remember Windows correctly) because they don't delete the originating file if it's cut but never pasted.
Even though Macs have a lot of keyboard shortcuts, philosophically Macs have traditionally been mouse-first. This applies to file copy operations. In your case, what a Mac user would do is open the source window, open the destination window (on your second drive), and then Command-drag the selected files from the source to destination window. This is because a normal drag would leave the originals behind, while adding the Command modifier key tells OS X that this is a Move, not a Copy, so don't leave the originals behind.
(In addition there are different rules for drag-copying within the same volume or between different volumes. If you drag between two folders on the same volume, the files are moved. If you drag between different volumes, the files are copied unless you hold down Command to delete the copies on the source volume.)
Roderick Guerry wrote:
Also, the MacBook Pro will not allow me to rename multiple documents or photographs. I can click-and-rename a single one, but this is impossibly time consuming. I can batch-rename in iPhoto, but when I transfer the photographs to the external drive, the rename does not transfer.
Two problems in this case. First, batch file renaming is not built into OS X unless you build something with Automator. However, there are many utilities that can do batch file renaming which you can find at macupdate.com or on the App Store. Since I work with media I often batch rename using one of the media managers I have lying around like Media Pro or Adobe Bridge (comes with Photoshop).
iPhoto is a database front end designed to shield the file system from the consumer and let them concentrate on creativity and sharing. As such it is often a poor choice for managing files directly. When you "transferred the photographs" chances are you moved the originals, not the ones iPhoto edited which are stored in a hidden folder.
Roderick Guerry wrote:
I’m reduced to using my wife’s Toshiba to cut-and-past, rename, and transfer documents. It works perfectly. Is there any way to do this on the MacBook Pro?
There will not be a way to do it exactly like Windows. As described above, there are ways to do it "the Mac way." If it is possible to remove judgment on which way is "better" you might find the Mac way to be acceptable, but of course sometimes we simply prefer what we're used to.

I threw out 24 time machine backups from an external hard drive into my desktop trash and now I can't empty my trash.

I threw out 24 time machine backups from an external hard drive into my IMac desktop trash and now I can't empty my trash.

Since you didn't mention what type of error message you were seeing, I'm going to guess on what is happening.
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Another "I can't empty my trash!" problem...!

Hi All,
Sorry, but this is another "I can't empty my trash" problem.
Have scoured the internet trying all the remedies but can't seem to delete these stupid folders.
I've tried the option key, secure emptying, going into Terminal, Cocktail doesn't want anything to do with these files.
There are 5 left over folders from my external hard-drive. They don't appear to be locked anymore (Get Info panel says so) but Leopard keeps shouting "Insufficient Privileges" at me every time I try to delete them.
"/Volumes/EXHD/.Trashes/501/MUSIC", that's the direct path to the main folder that's being stubborn.
Please help me, all I want is a clear Trash Can!

tenorhorn wrote:
Hi All,
Sorry, but this is another "I can't empty my trash" problem.
Have scoured the internet trying all the remedies but can't seem to delete these stupid folders.
I've tried the option key, secure emptying, going into Terminal, Cocktail doesn't want anything to do with these files.
There are 5 left over folders from my external hard-drive. They don't appear to be locked anymore (Get Info panel says so) but Leopard keeps shouting "Insufficient Privileges" at me every time I try to delete them.
"/Volumes/EXHD/.Trashes/501/MUSIC", that's the direct path to the main folder that's being stubborn.
Please help me, all I want is a clear Trash Can!
Welcome to Apple Discussions:
Remember how the trash works. The trashed files are not necessarily on your Mac.
When you trash a file, it goes into the local (maybe hidden) trash folder on the harddrive. The desktop trash only contains a link to the actual file in the trashbin on the external drive.
The proper way to delete that trash would be to reconnect the external drive and then empty the trash, assuming that the external drive has not been modified.
You say you used the terminal - exactly what did you do?
In a terminal, enter the following commands
cd .Trash
ls -al
you should see a listing of the files in the trashbin.
On my machine here are the results for a trashed folder and file:
-rw-r--r--@ 1 nero nero 4 Oct 20 20:27 testfile.txt
drwxr-xr-x 2 nero nero 68 Oct 20 20:19 untitled folder
Notice that I own both files/folders and most importantly, I have write (w) permission on them.
Post back your results and perhaps we can diagnose the problem better.

Can't empty my Trash-Keep getting "Operation can't be completed because an unexpected error occurred (error code -8003). Anyone know what to do?

Can't empty my Trash-Keep getting "Operation can't be completed because an unexpected error occurred (error code -8003). Anyone know what to do?

I had the same problem yesterday with an application file that was deleted after installation of an update. I used "Put Back" to move it back to its original location, then used "Show Package Contents" to delete/empty trash for small groups of files at a time. I suppose the application file itself may have been too large to empty at one time. I hope this helps.

I can't empty my trash, error code - 8003

Hi All
I can't empty my trash, error code - 8003.
I have varified and repaired the harddrive, but still no joy... any suggestions
would be most welcome?
many thanks
Jon

Hello,
Generally a Permissions error caused by deleting Time Machine files in Finfer ibstead of TM, but...
Solving Trash Problems...
http://thexlab.com/faqs/trash.html

HT1338 I can't empty my trash.

I can't empty my trash. I cleaned up my hard disk but I still can't empty my trash. How can I fix this problem?

Have you done this yet, in Terminal?
sudo chown -R [your_username] .Trash
where you replace [your_username] with the name of your Home folder/User account name (also remove the square bracekts).
Press 'return' and enter your password when prompted (your keypresses will not be echoed to the screen, so type carefully)
It won't delete anything, but it will set the proper permissions for your Trash folder.
After executing this command, try empting the trash in the normal way.

Can't empty iPhoto trash

I've seen a couple of postings on this but it doesn't solve my basic problem.
I recently bought a new Macbook and tried to transfer photos from my old computer to my new one. I'm not sure what I did as I started the transfer before going to bed one night, but it ended up tranferring (or creating, via duplicates) over 100K photos into my new iPhoto. This was obviously a mistake so I decided to delete everything and start over (all of my photos are safely in iPhoto on my old computer). However, even though I have "deleted" all of the photos, they are still on my computer hogging up space...because I can't empty the trash folder in iPhoto.
How do I recitfy this? Do I just delete iPhoto altogether and reinstall it? Is there any other way I can get to these "hidden" files and delete them permanently from the hard drive? They are also slowing down my computer - when I open it up in the morning, the screen is "greyed out" - I have to wait for a status bar to complete to get the screen back to normal. Then I have to wait at least a minute before I can even move the cursor (the wireless will disconnect and reconnect during this process).

iiPhoto is known to lock up if you try to delete a large number of photos at a time. Here are a couple of ways to get out of the predicament you're in:
1 - go into iPhoto's General preference pane and uncheck the Show item counts checkbox:
and then try emptying the iPhoto Trash bin again. This method is iffy and doesn't work for everyone.
2 - If that fails and you don't use the Rating stars you can do the following: select all of the photos in the trash and Control-click to bringup the contextual menu. There will be the 5 stars for the ratings. Select either 5 or 1 to apply that rating to the photos.
Next create a smart album with the criteria:
selecting the number of start you applied to those in the Trash bin.
Move the photos from the Trash bin to the Library and the Smart Album will immediately be populated with those photos.
You can now select about 100 photos or so at a time and use the Command+Option+Delete key combination to move them back to the Trash bin and empty it. Repeat with groups of about 100 or so photos till they are all deleted. Then delete the Trash bin in the Dock to completely remove them from your hard drive.
OT

Mac OS 10.5 / I deleted the " Private" folder ... and emptied the trash. So the folder and its contents no longer exists on my computer at all !!! I do have the OS dvd that i purchased years ago... But my computer will not start from it on its own. My

Mac OS 10.5 /
I deleted the " Private" folder ... and emptied the trash. So the folder and its contents no longer exists on my computer at all !!!
I do have the OS 10.5 dvd that i purchased years ago...
But my computer will not start from it on its own.
My question is what is the open source or terminal language code used to tell my mac to look in the DVD rom drive for startup info? I know that im not the only person in this world who has deleted the "PRIVATE" folder and emptied the trash so it no longer exists on their machine...
That said theres gotta be a common fix for a Power PC G4 that has the OS X dvd in the rom drive but wont look to it to reinstall the vital contents of the PRIVATE folder.
Once again there is not a copy of this file or its contents in the recycle bin...
Also rebooting the machine , pressing and holding the letter C does not prompt the machine to look to the dvd rom drive.
I was reinstalling pro tools and figured I would make some room by cleaning my computers HD...
Lol It was a bad choice to delete this file ...
Thanks guys

Okay sorry it took forever to respond... But for a while there I gave up on this computer!!!!
Money's been tight lately , so taking it in to a professional was not yet an option... though I did consider it eventhough.
Anyway long story short im glad I didnt spend any money because I already had all the tools necessary to fix this issue but was going about it in the wrong way. Okay so here is my scenario and the breakdown... Though this may not fix the issue for everyone :( which *****... But I know we all will have different circumstances.
Anyway here we go...
Okay so first things first.... Years ago I purchased the OS 10.5.1 disk ... So that has always been in my possession!!!!
I realize that some may not have a disk to reflash your OS to your hard drive... but if you do your in luck.
2ndly ... I had an external harddrive with all of my itunes downloaded music so it was more than okay with me to delete my primary HD because all the important stuff could either be copied over or repathed to be located.
-------If you dont want to read through the whole story the fix is summed up in the bottom section-------
Okay so now the SOLUTION!!!!
By trial and error , and pure boredom I opened up my computer to clean the inside...
AND
"Disconnected the primary HD"
and just because ....... REBOOTED my computer. Just to see what it would do.
Upon restart and though it looked like it would repeat its usual cycle...
About 1 minute in to that process my computer froze for about 2 seconds and flashed to the OS installation screen.
Mind you I havent seen this screen yet... Probably hasnt been since I installed the OS years ago.
After a bit of trial and error...
I decided to tell my computer to startup from the OS 10.5 disk located in my dvd rom drive and restarted once again...
this setting is under
Utilities / startup disk
After a little more trial and error ... I realized that I could reconnect the primary HD , restart the machine and return to the OS installation menu.
So upon this discovery
I went to the Disk Utility located under Utilities
Highlighted my primary HD located in the left hand column
Once highlighted ...
In the heading section on the right I selected the option
Erase
in which I erased My current OS on my primary HD ...
I used the first option in the list under security... Because it seemed like the least invasive and would take the least amount of time to see if this process would actually work.
I FORGOT to add something...
Another reason why I deleted my primary HD!!!!!
I forgot to say that it WOULD NOT!!!!! Show up in the STARTUP list as an option...Even After multiple reboots....
But like clockwork... Once I deleted its name IT SHOWED UP as an option!!!!
So back to the next step...
I returned to the STARTUP option under utilities ... And was then able to see MY primary HD now as a startup option...
But ofcourse it had no name because it we previously erased it.
So when Clicking my newly erased HD ... I was almost immediately prompted to REINSTALL the OS ...
Which said it would take about 57 minutes ... But I believe was alot less...
My issue was resolved ... My computer then stated the install was SUCCESSFUL!!!!!!! :))))))))))) lol ;)
It was like I was setting up for the first time ;) asking for my registration info...
The dilemma of deleting the private folder and emptying the trash is finally over resolved. Done ... and no extra money spent!!!!!!!!!
Its really crazy that the information for such a simple thing is not readily available. Especially being such a simple fix.
I know im not the only person who's had this issue , because i've seen numerous posts with similar wording.
I also know I wont be the last person to have this issue... So I hope this synopsis makes sense.
-------One more time the fix------
*Insert your OS dvd into your dvd rom drive.
*Unplug your primary HD or corrupted startup disk
*Reboot your machine...
Upon restart your primary HD will not be recognized...
* you will then be prompted to select your language.
Once selected
*Click Utilities/startup... Highlight the the selection that refers to the OS dvd located in the dvd rom drive.
* Click restart...
!!!!!!!!!!Be sure to reconnect your Primary HD Before your computer restarts and you hear the chime!!!!!!!!
If you do not replug your HD before the chime it will not be recognized.
In that case restart again.
Upon restart once again
*Choose your language...
*Click Utilities / disk utility
In the left column select and
*Highlight your HD ...
Then towards the top portion / center of the page
*Click the heading Erase
Then on the page toward the bottom
*Click security options
This will then provide erase options.
I USED THE FIRST OPTION
"Dont erase data"...
*click OK
* click erase...
Once erased which should take a few seconds
*Cancel the disk utility...
* Click Utilities / startup
And your newly erased HD should now appear in the list.
* Select your drive from the list by highlighting
It should no longer have a name.
*Once selected, you will then be prompted to restart and install the OS to your newly erased HD...
Thats it!!!!
Once everything reinstalls re-add your personal info or registration info and you are up and running.
Goodluck ;)

How can I empty my trash?

How can I empty my trash? Every time I try it says operation cannot be complteted because an error code appeared (8003).

Try Quitting all your apps, logging out and then logging back in.
Also try Repairing Permissions using Disk Utlity.

I can't empty the trash or format the disk on my macmini (2009)

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