Lion + Finder : How to empty Trash ?

Problem context:
OS X Lion
Developer environment (involved: git, Titanium Studio)
Sounds like filesystem corruption
What happens:
When I try to empty the trash, a preparation window appears, with an activity indicator (preparing to delete) and it never goes further.
I have been waiting 3 times, for hours every time, and nothing happens.
What I've tried:
Empty trash
Empty trash securely
Disk Utility (Recovery Console)
Repair disk
Fix disk permissions
Terminal app
rm -rf ~/.Trash/*
rm -rf ~/.Trash
unlink -df ~/.Trash/*
Why I need help:
From now on, I can no longer Empty Trash, so everything I delete must stay in there undefinitely.
Help and suggestions are encouraged!

How it was structured:
~/.Trash/__MACOSX/parc-o-metre/build
build being the defect node
What I did lately:
in Terminal app, I went into parc-o-metre folder :
cd ~/.Trash/__MACOSX/parc-o-metre
mv build ~/Desktop/toc
rm -rf ~/Desktop/toc
What's next ?
Yet, I can not delete the toc node
Actually, I can now get into toc folder with Finder, and it appears to be an empty folder.
An empty folder which I can not delete, neither manually in Terminal or with Finder.

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HT1338 How to empty trash?

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2. Select Empty Trash from the Finder's Finder menu.
3. With Finder window active press COMMAND-SHIFT-DELETE.

How to empty trash in iphoto

Can anyone tell me how to empty my iphoto trash? I realized recently that my iphoto deleted photos didn't go to the regular desktop trashcan but to the iPhoto trashcan. I now have 34K items in that trash can. Everytime I try to go through the empty iphoto trash, the program quits and reboots. I've tried dragging 10 or so photos to the desktop trash can but that doesn't seem to work either.
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MolzinNe

Let me repost the method to try:
Do you use ratings with your photos? If not then 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 stars you applied to those in the Trash bin.
Select all of the photos in the Trash bin and drag onto the Events icon above it and the Smart Album will immediately be populated with those photos.
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HT201210 how to empty trash to free up space

How do I empty trash for iphone? Im unable to upgrade to iOS 7 because I dont have enough free space

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How to empty trash normally on OSX 10.7.5?

When I right-clicked the trash icon and clicked "Empty Trash", the finder pop-up window only shows "Secure Empty Trash", which takes approximately 10 days.

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How to Empty Trash on External Hard Drive

I'm using an external hard drive for Time Machine. I used it for my old laptop's backup and have transferred all needed files, app, and such to my new computer. I want to trash everything from the old backups so I have room for the new ones. I moved everything to the trash and clicked on Empty Securely. A message pops up saying "There are some locked items in the Trash. Do you want to remove all the items, including the locked ones, or just the unlocked items?" My choices are Cancel, Remove Unlocked Items, and Remove All Items. I chose the last one and it appeared to start to empty over 400,000 items but with no other actions or messages, it stopped. I tried it again using the second option and got the same results. I ejected and re-mounted the external drive and tried it several more times with the same results each time. Why won't the trash empty?!?!?

Unless you have other data on the volume, the best option is to erase it in Disk Utility. Don't do this unless you have at least one other complete backup, which you should have anyway.

Finder stalls forever when trying to empty trash

Occasionally, about once a day or every other day, when I try to empty the trash, it'll bring up the progress bar, but it'll say 0 items regardless of how many items are in the trash. It'll stall, the Finder uses up 100+% of CPU, fan goes wild, and it'll stay like that for, as far as I can tell, forever. If that happens, I'll bring up the force quit window, select Finder and click restart. The finder quits, the empty-trash-progress bar disappears, fan slows down, but the Finder does not come back up... The dock seems to be working, but if I click on something to launch it, it won't launch anything. Basically it won't respond to anything. Applications that are already running at this point will continue to run, but behaves strangely, and sometimes won't respond. If I press the power button, it brings up the shutdown/restart option, but selecting one of the options don't seem to do anything, so I end up having to force shutdown by holding down the power button.
After I restart it, there's no problem emptying the trash. It seems to only happen when I've had my computer running for a while, and I can never predict when it'll happen again.
Secure erase trash is disabled.
I've had this issue at least from 10.6.1, and maybe 10.6 as well. Upgrading to 10.6.2 did not resolve it.
Anyone have the same issue, and/or have any clue what might be going on?
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Message was edited by: doxa

The first and easiest thing I'd try would be the Trash itself.
Go to /Applications /Utilities/Terminal and launch it.
At the prompt, copy and paste this commandsudo rm -rf ~/.TrashPress Return.
You will be asked to enter your admin password. It will be invisible.
Enter it and press Return.
Log out and back in or restart.
Let us know.
-mj

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I am trying to uninstall realplayer and I have closed the program and moved it from finder to my trash. When I try to empty trash, I get an error message that says, "The operation cannot be completed because the item "RealPlayerDVR.icns" is in use." How do I get past this to empty it?

Secure empty the trash.
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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.

HT201250 I just did my first back up with TM and My Passport for Mac, when done adn went into the box ....options...to try and fidn how to delete trash. Then I went back to see if it was erady to do its next scheduled back up and it says there is an error

I just did my initial back up to hard drive (My Passport for Mac 1TB) with TIme Machine on Snow Leopard. I had wanted to omit trash but couldn't find it. All went great and finished in an hour. Then said would restart at 6pm. I went into options about 20 minutes before (when it was done initially) to try and find how to delete trash from being backed up next time.. THis messed things up and now it doesn't recognize the disk and won't let me manually back up...says error. What do I do?
JD in AZ

For all things Time Machine See Pondini's Excellent information here...
http://pondini.org/OSX/Home.html
Start Here > http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html
Also see the FAQs

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I have checked the properties of the files and I have read/write, and the files aren't locked.
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Sometimes enabling "Empty Trash securely" may cause this.
Finder > Preferences > Advanced > "Empty Trash securely"
https://discussions.apple.com/message/16163001#16163001

Quit when emptying trash

I have about 1,100 photos in the trash, and when I choose Empty Trash, the app either freezes on the OK/Cancel sheet, or it unexpectedly quits.
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I am having the same problem. I have 767 images in the trash that i want to delete. I cant move them out and delete a few at a time, the only choice you get is to restore to original location, it would take a life time to refind them all. too bad it wont let you drag them to a new album and then you could maybe delete 50 at a time.
i am stuck. i need the space and i want them deleted, but iPhoto crashes every time i try. i did the new thumbs (or whatever it is called, cant see thread on this screen.)
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-Bmer
Mac Owners Support Group
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I've emptied trash, removed files, discarded everything I don't use and my startup disc is still full. Half of it is 'other'. How do I find out what 'other' is and remove it?

I've emptied trash, removed files, discarded everything I don't use and my startup disc is still full. Half of it is 'other'. How do I find out what 'other' is and remove it? I'm using a Mac OS X Lion 10.7.5 (11G63). Any help will be treasured!

Linda Steider wrote:
How do I find out what 'other' is and remove it?
See Pondiini's The Storage Display, for details.

Lion + Finder : How to empty Trash ?

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