Problem with secure empty trash

I'm having trouble to secure empty trash. So basically I have a hard drive plugged in and because the space is getting really little I wanted to empty the trash so that I would have more space in the hard drive. But everytime I'm in the middle of the process it is never done because "The operation can’t be completed because you don’t have permission to access some of the items.". I tried to go to the disk utility to change the permission but the option is unavailable. Can someone please help me out? There's only 16GB left in my hard drive and I really need more space since it's storing too much trash right now. Thanks!
p.s. my hard drive is 320 GB spectra flash.

Please see my other post of the same nature.
Thanks to Hypen, WMP is GONE GONE GONE

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Problem while securely emptying trash

When I first got this laptop I would securely delete things and it would work fine. But for a long time now, when I securely delete things a question pops up that says "the operation cannot be completed because the item 'recovered files' is in use." Then it asks if i want to "stop" or "continue." I always hit continue and it works fine. I don't know if this is really a problem with my laptop but i know for a fact that it didn't always do this. So is there something i can do so that it will just smoothly delete the files without a popup question??
thanks for your help.
-chris.

i found this freeware which looks pretty promising, if you don't care to have to quit your apps or empty recovered files at all. http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/29227 i would give that a try. good luck Sherry

Secure Empty Trash is RAM-hog, or something...

All I want to do is secure empty trash some files larger than 700 MBs and when I do this, everything lags. I open activity monitor (slowly) and cpu is at 100 %. I try to stop the secure empty trash. nothing. So I relaunch Finder, secure empty trash again, again cpu at 100 %. Anyone had this problem?

secure empty trash works by overwriting the existing data 7 times in addition to unlinking it. this does seem to occupy the CPU quite heavily on my computer. also doing it with a 700MB file will take A LONG time. I would stay away from it unless there is an extremely compelling reason to use it.
Message was edited by: V.K.

Secure Empty Trash fails

When trying to Secure Empty Trash if it contains locked files I select the "Remove Locked Items" option but the action fails and the trash isn't emptied. It can be emptied using the "Remove Locked Items" option and just using the normal empty trash option.
Additionally it reports locked files in trash which on examination via "Get Info" are unlocked - these can't be securely emptied either but again can be using Empty Trash.
It seems therefore that there might be a problem with secure empty and files which are or have been locked.
I did a clean install of Yosemite and transferred user files back from a Time Machine backup. All went perfectly - no other issues.
I have tried new files i.e. ones created under Yosemite rather than Mavericks - no difference.
I have repaired permissions via disk utility and reset home directory permissions and ACL's which has made no difference. It happens on more than one account.
Anyone else experienced this or could try it for me?
Thanks

I've bumped this as I'm still having problems and wonder if someone could try and secure empty trash with a locked file in it and see what happens. I've created a new account and the same thing happens.
If someone could create say a simple text file, lock it via the "Get Info" option and then delete it to trash. Try to secure empty trash and see if the "remove locked items" works and the trash is emptied and the locked file removed.
Much appreciated if someone could do this
Terry

Secure Empty Trash difficulty

Recently I reinstalled Panther (10.3.9) using the Archive and Install method. This created a folder called Previous System.
Since this folder was using up hard drive space without apparently contributing anything to the workings of the new system I trashed it.
Since the Trash already contained a number of small files that I needed to wipe securely, I clicked on Secure Empty Trash.
With Secure Empty Trash chugging along at a snail’s pace (about one item per second) the Trash was still not emptied some ten hours later. I dragged what remained of the Previous System Folder out of Trash and Secure Emptied the remaining Trash contents.
Parts of this Previous System could not be trashed, securely or not. This was mainly the old Library. So I still have a GB or more wasting space on the hard drive.
I have two questions arising out this little exercise:
1. The Secure Empty Trash is a good feature. Why was it not designed to selectively deal with trashed files? Trashed files are often quite large and may not be particularly sensitive. They may not require the Secure Empty Trash treatment, but Secure Empty Trash lumps them in with other files that DO need to be securely wiped. So time is wasted.
It indicates perhaps that two trash bins are needed. One for everyday stuff that empties normally, and one for stuff that needs to be securely wiped.
2. Why can’t I totally trash the Previous System Folder?
Maybe there’s ways around both of these problems?
eMac Mac OS X (10.3.9)

Jack,
Your thoughtful questions deserve some expert answers, but all I have to offer you is a link to Solving Trash Problems, by Dr. Smoke.
;~)

Secure Empty Trash Progress Bar Stalls With 4 Items Left

Greetings All,
I've recently installed OS X 10.5.1 and have had pretty good luck. I just tried to use the Secure Empty Trash function and the progress bar seems to be stalled with 4 items left. The trash can did "empty" with the associated sound effect when the bar hit 4 items, but that's as far as the bar will go. I've forced quit and have restarted the computer, added more trash, and run Secure Empty Trash again, but it always seems to stall out with 4 items left
Is there a way to make it go all the way to 0 items?
Where can I look to confirm if any trash is actually left (the trash can is empty)?
How can I be sure all my trash was securely destroyed?
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you.

Thank you very much for this input... it is helpful. I downloaded the program and I can see how it will be extremely handy. I didn't realize that there were enough problems with the finder emptying trash to result in programs written to help with it. It must be a large enough problem in the big picture, though.
I looked through the developer's site and didn't see an indication regarding the type of emptying this program does (i.e. secure or normal). I am assuming it's a normal emptying of the trash.
Thank you again.

'Secure Empty Trash' quits unexpectedly with external harddrive

I am running mavericks on a MacBook Pro, and removing old back-ups from an external harddrive, in order to make room for newer, time-machine backups.
After deleting an old back up, I am choosing to 'Secure Empty Trash', to clear out that space.
It started out with 650K plus items to delete and after a few days now, I'm down to 180K items.
But the system keeps quitting, and won't allow it to finish these final items.
I do get the question, "some items are locked, do you want to delete them" and I've tried choosing both yes, and no, and each time the process never gets started, just quits.
I'd like to get this drive cleared for more space.
Any suggestions on how to make it continue?
Thank you,

This was very helpful, thank you. With holding down the option key, I was able to get very far.
Now it's stuck again at 59K items left to delete. Holding down the option key is not making a difference.
The directions for working under the terminal system aren't very clear to understand.
Any other suggestions?
thank you so much.

Secure Empty Trash & Trash Cache

Am old Mac addict home user with Apple from day one but not a guru. Still have Apple IIE that runs like a clock. With 17 Macs in between, years ago when G3 would slow down, get sluggish and tired, I discovered that setting trash cache and deleting many thousands of cached files would invigorate the machine and restore it's original speed using Preferences in TechTool Pro V 3.
Currently have TTP V4 in both G5 Pro Mac OS 10.5.6 and G5 Power Mac OS 10.4.11. Cleaning out old manuals got rid of TTP V2 and V3 manuals. Still have CDs but unfortunately no serial numbers. So, unable to open those programs. Micromat archives couldn't help. Also, unable to use TTP V4 preferences to set trash cache as there's no Preferences capability. Apparently it can be assumed there's no trash cache in current versions of TTP.
Queried Micromat about trash cache who said to "Go into "System Preferences" --> "TechTool Protection". In the "Volume Usage" tab, you can set how many days you want TechTool Pro to save the "Trash History"." No joy as I couldn't figure out what that meant about "System Preferences" or how to do what they recommended.
No problem as both G5s are operating fine. But, I'm curious.
I use "Secure Empty Trash" exclusively shutting down my G5s. My questions: Does that shut down feature remove all data from the HD thereby eliminating the need for a trash cache? If there's still a trash cache, is there any way to set it? Thank you and regards. Ol' Jim.

Did you get a response to this? There is no solution listed, but it’s marked Solved.
I think you are right that there is no longer a Trash Cache. I did a search and it came up with two files called Trash Cache, both were dated 2002, obviously many systems ago which probably came over with Migration Assistant from previous computers.
The TechTool Protection is new with TTP 5. You won’t see it in System Preferences with TTP 4. That’s probably why you couldn’t figure out what they meant.
Secure Empty Trash writes over those files which makes them nearly impossible to recover, so I don’t think you need to worry about them.

Secure emptying trash when getting privilges message

Hi folks,
Any help much appreciated.
I decided the other day to use my Iomega Screenplay HD as a backup for my mac. Because it is NSCF (or whatever it is) I knew I'd have to re-format it in Fat32. I copied the contents of the HD to my Mac with the intention of writing it all back once the HD had been formatted.
However when I read up about formatting this HD I discovered that once it had been formatted to Fat32 I would not be able to use the screenplay function any more (it comes in handy). So I decided not to format it and pick up a different HD to use as a backup.
So anyway here's my problem. I copied 48gb of data to the Mac that I no longer want there (as I already have on the screenplay HD). So I moved it to the trash. I then hit the secure empty trash button (Im under the impression this is better as it completely clears valuable space on the mac's HD). However it will not delete. I keep getting the message "The operation cannot be completed because you do not have sufficient priviliges for some of the items".
As I said, I would like to completely delete all these files as they are 48gb and are taking up room I can really do with. From what I can gather holding command and hitting delete will get rid of the files from the trash but they will still be on the computer taking up space.
I've tried googling but am not getting anywhere. If someone can help I'd be much appreciated.
Cheers.

Just emptying the trash does only delete directory paths, but that is all that is required to completely release the disk space. As far as the system is concerned that space is empty and available.
It is theoretically possible, under some conditions, to scan the empty space on a disk and reconstruct files that were once there. The purpose of Secure Empty Trash is to make that impossible by scribbling over the empty space. But if nobody goes to the trouble and expense of scanning for deleted files, then it makes no difference whether empty blocks contain random bit patterns or the remnants of old files. With ordinary Empty Trash, the space is as free and available as it will ever be.

MacBook Pro: Unable to Empty Trash (secure or otherwise). Have tried all remedies suggested on Apple's site. I think "Secure Empty Trash" bogs at the first file "iPhone4, 1_8.02_12A495_Restore.ipsw" at 1.78 GB size and goes no further.

MacBook Pro: Unable to Empty Trash (secure or otherwise). Have tried all remedies suggested on Apple's site. I think "Secure Empty Trash" bogs at the first file "iPhone4, 1_8.02_12A495_Restore.ipsw" at 1.78 GB size and goes no further. When I try to move it out of Trash to a temporary location so I can empty remainder of Trash, I get the message "Some of the items you are moving are in use by another application. Moving the items can cause problems with the application using them. Are you sure you want to move these items?" at which point I select "Stop" to avoid possible disaster. Can you help? Thanks.

01/05/15 6:01:27.000 pm kernel[0]: Previous shutdown cause: -62
That usually indicates an abnormal shutdown due to a hardware fault. The exact cause can only be determined by Apple, so schedule a Genius Bar Reservation.

Secure Empty Trash vs Empty Trash, Hangs and Advanced Finder Pref.

I've had my intel-based iMac for a couple of weeks and I've been getting a frequent hanging trash problem that causes me to restart my Mac far too often. Restarting the iMac fixes it but I don't know what the problem is to begin with. It seems to happen when I have over 10MB in the trash and I choose "Secure Empty Trash."
While I'm on the topic of "Secure Empty Trash," won't "Empty Trash" do the same thing SECURELY since I've previously checked it off in my Finder Preferences? Is the "double selection" of secure empty trash part of the problem (i.e. selecting it when I go to empty the trash as well as having it selected in my finder preferences)? Any and all help is appreciated.

Yes it's the same if you choose Secure Empty Trash from the Finder or if you have it selected in the Finder advanced preferences. The thing is electing to Secure Empty the trash may take a lot longer to empty because it does either a 7 pass or 35 pass write over the files and that can take a long time to do for large files.
As a test it took me just over 3 minutes to Secure Empty a 175MB file.
Something you should do though seeing as you've had to forcefully shut down your iMac a few times is Run Disk Utilities. Open up Applications/Utilities/Disk Utility select your hard drive on the left and under the First Aid tab click on Repair Disk Permissions then Verify Disk.
George

Securely emptying trash after having emptied trash (unsecurely)

Hello. I've emptied my trash as I'm parting with my MacBook, but following this I realised that I should have securely emptied the trash. Now I want to restore the emptied trash for the purpose of securely emptying the trash, but it seems quite impossible. Is there an easy way to do this?
I would wipe the mac but I don't have the OS CDs as they weren't sold with the Mac as everything was pre-installed.

Grant Bennet-Alder wrote:
Confidential to Julian Assange and Ed Snowden: YOU guys need to do the 35 passes with random data.
Faster and safer to replace the drive, that 35x takes weeks to complete and isn't available anymore only on Snow Leopard and for a time hard drives were small.
Brian Manning started out with 35x, but it was taking so long he canceled and went with 0x and that's not strong enough as the government used magnetic techniques to read the deleted data.
7x is DOD approved method, that's what Secure Empty Trash does by default.
However the problem with that is it only does what's in the Trash, not hidden files, caches etc., for a better method the entire drive or account should be scrubbed with free space 0x-7x.

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.

Hi guys, an empty folder is stuck in my trash & I get this message: "The Finder can't complete the operation because some data in the folder can't be read or written. (Error code -36). It won't shift no matter how I try to Secure Empty trash. Any ideas?

Hi guys, an empty folder is stuck in my trash & I get this message: "The Finder can’t complete the operation because some data in the folder can’t be read or written. (Error code -36). It won't shift no matter how I try to Secure Empty trash. Any ideas?

The Time Machines Backup is formated as Mac OS Extended (Case Sensitive, Journaled), my mac is formated as Mac OS Extended (Journaled).
The names on the file are all Uppercase
When I try to copy the Aperture file, it copies about 70% of the file (it's about 33GB in size), and halfway through I get this error.
I'm able to copy 99.99% of all of the images if I open the Aperture Folder using the "show package contents" under the backups using finder (Time Machine Backups>Backups.backupdb>CQ Macbook Air>2012-04-30-070933>HD.....>Pictures>Aperture Library). The only file I can't copy is that picture, which I'm totally ok with deleting, but Finder won't delete it for me. If nothing else works, I could copy the individual masters and re-create the folders, however I'd hate to do this as I would have to go through 10,000+ pics

How do I override "error code -61" when attempting to put things in the Trash? Cannot empty Trash or use Secure Empty Trash.

How do I override "error code -61" when attempting to put items in the Trash? Cannot empty Trash or use Secure Empty Trash. I have a MacBook OS X 10.5.8

The reason why some of the files are blocking the trash from emptying is because of specific ".app" files from third party companies like Adobe products. Not the user files or the various help documents but instead the actual mother program. Here's how to fix this problem:
1) remove from the trash all the actual software programs like Photoshop, InDesign, DreamWeaver and so on and put them on the desktop.
2) Command "I" (info) and when the dialog box opens go to the "Name & Extension" text box and remove the ".app" from the software name. Example: Photoshop.app change to Photoshop.
3) the program icon will change to a "folder icon".
4) put the folder icon back into the trash and you should be able to now empty the trash.
If you continue to get the error code 8003 it's because you may still have one or more software programs in the trash that needs to go through this process. Remember - it's not the user files or help documents or supporting files that is causing this but instead the "actual product programs".
JKai

Problem with secure empty trash

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