Secure empty trash very slow

Are there suggestions for speeding up Secure Empty Trash?

I got a tip from a Genius at the Green Hills (Nashville) Apple Support Bar today on how to instantly empty the Trash folder. This comes with a big warning/disclaimer: you will not be prompted about any of the action to delete the contents of your Trash as this sequence of steps force deletes all trash. In other words, there's no turning back. I did this after facing 8 hours of a trash emptying cycle to get rid of 280,000 files...
Here it is: while simultaneosly holding down Command + Option keys, press Shift and then press Delete (all four, in that order).
It works - it's instant! But be sure you want to take this action.

Similar Messages

Emptying trash very slow

Mysterious delay in moving items to trash by selecting them then clicking command-delete. Takes about 10 seconds for system to respond. Only been happening since moving up to Leopard. Any ideas?

Force quit. Your Library is damaged.
Option 1
Back Up and try rebuild the library: hold down the command and option (or alt) keys while launching iPhoto. Use the resulting dialogue to rebuild. Choose to Rebuild iPhoto Library Database from automatic backup.
If that fails:
Option 2
Download iPhoto Library Manager and use its rebuild function. This will create a new library based on data in the albumdata.xml file. Not everything will be brought over - no slideshows, books or calendars, for instance - but it should get all your albums and keywords, faces and places back.
Because this process creates an entirely new library and leaves your old one untouched, it is non-destructive, and if you're not happy with the results you can simply return to your old one.
Regards
TD

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.

What exactly does "Secure Empty Trash" do?

There's very little technical detail on the web about this. I'd like to understand exactly what secure empty trash does.
What method does it use to overwrite?
How does it deal with temp files?
Why does it take so long?
Why, when there's only one file in the trash, does it always claim it's erasing 9 files?
What other files is it erasing in addition to the visible trash contents?
Can it work across network connections and external drives?
Has the method changed in Leopard?
etc.. etc..
Feel free to get all technical, if you know the answers!
Thanks!

What method does it use to overwrite?
It writes over the files with 0's.
How does it deal with temp files?
Not sure what you mean. It treats any file in the trash the same. Could you elaborate?
Why does it take so long?
Because it has to first write over the item with 0's, then delete the item.
Why, when there's only one file in the trash, does it always claim it's erasing 9 files?
What other files is it erasing in addition to the visible trash contents?
It's a bug.
Can it work across network connections and external drives?
Yes.
Has the method changed in Leopard?
Not that I know of.

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.

Why is emptying trash so slow in Snow Leopard??

Why is emptying trash so slow in Snow Leopard!?
t

Have you just upgraded by the sound of it? Snow Leopard's trash is fine here.
Check to see if your Finder Preferences > Advanced tab has Empty Trash securely selected. That will slow things down. If so, deselect it to speed things up.

'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 not 100% safe

Recently I use finder to enter directly into Firefox's cache files and move all the files into the Trash. Next I use Secure Empty Trash.
After that, I used Data Rescue II to see what i can find.
I am very surprised to find most of the images that i have securely deleted.
I know the best way is to use Disk Utility's erase free space function, but if Secure Empty Trash is going to write the data 35 times over, and still can't get the job done.
Then using Erase free space's 35 times write-over isn't completely safe too?

Normally when a file is deleted insecurely, the data isn't deleted at all - the only thing that is removed is the reference to the data in the file catalogue. Overwriting a file even once (let alone 35 times) should prevent recovery by programmes like the one you mentioned that are designed to detect unlinked files and create new catalogue entries for them. Given the above, a few possibilities come to mind that could account for your observations.
One is that the files you recovered were not the ones you thought you deleted. For example, working with "TextEdit.app", any time a previously saved document is modified, an invisible "autosave" copy is created on the hard drive, intended to preserve any modifications in case the programme or computer crashes. This copy is removed insecurely once the changes are manually saved. If the original is then securely erased, it will be unrecoverable. However, data recovery programmes can easily recover the remnants of the multiple intermediate "autosave" files. I have no idea how "FireFox" works with cache files, but perhaps what you recovered was remnants from previous times you visited the sites that were cached in the files you securely deleted.
A second, less likely possibility is that your files were recoverable due to a design flaw introduced in Leopard's version of "Secure Empty Trash" (I haven't tested recently so I don't know if the issue has since been addressed). It is possible to configure it so that files are not securely deleted, even when selecting the option. However, such a configuration would not be a random occurrence - basically, a user would have to set it themselves, although malware or a malicious person with access to your account could do the same...
A third possibility, perhaps related to the second, is that in Leopard, regardless of whether the over-writing stage of "secure empty trash" succeeds or fails for any reason, the process will still continue to the unlinking stage, in effect deleting insecurely. Prior to Leopard, if over-writing failed, the file would not be unlinked, which had at least two benefits: i) since the file was never insecurely deleted, it would not be necessary to initiate a time consuming "erase free space" procedure to ensure that the data was destroyed; and ii) the very presence of the file serves as feedback to the user that the procedure has failed, unlike in Leopard where it fails silently.
Either way, using "erase free space" shouldn't be affected by these issues. If the file has been deleted (i.e. copies do not still exist in a hidden cache file somewhere), then overwriting "free space" should prevent basic recovery software from restoring it, assuming the procedure is allowed to run to completion.

Secure Empty Trash difficulties

Anyone have a guess why Secure Empty Trash has stopped working in my Admin account, yet still works perfectly in the other four standard user accounts on the family Mac?
In my Admin account, starting a Secure Empty gives me the progress bar which just hangs there...forever. The hard drive is crunching away like crazy but the progress bar barely moves. Eventually, it will empty. But we're talking something on the order of 15 minutes or more to delete no more than 4 files. The size of the files seems not to matter. It will take aeons to secure delete 200k as well as 2M. The crunching of the HD is very concerning.
I've searched this board and found very little to go on. Any help will be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
JimC
G5 dual 2G Mac OS X (10.3.9)

JimC,
Perhaps Solving Trash Problems, by Dr. Smoke may provide some clues for eliminating your difficulties.
;~)

Secure Empty Trash doesn't work

Working in Mavericks on an iMac 27. Secure Empty Trash starts but disappears and nothing is deleted. Is it safe to use Erase Free Space in Disk Utility?

danimal303 wrote:
So it won't help me at all. I don't quite see any use for it, a good reason not to use it. But I have some 560 000 files in Trash and they won't budge.
When you delete a file (without Secure Empty Trash), all the data of the file still exists on the file system free list. It will remain there until the file system reuses the space. Erase Free Space is a way to address this, after files have been deleted.
It is only really useful as a once in a while event, such as someone forgot to use Secure Empty Trash for a file with sensitive data. And Secure Empty Trash is very time consuming, and worse it is if you have an SSD, this wears out the SSD faster.
A better approach is to use FileVault so that a deleted file is instantly securely deleted because it was always encrypted.
Since you are attempting to use Secure Empty Trash, then I would try this from the command line using the 'srm' command. "man srm"
srm -f -r -v ~/.Trash/*
The srm command will perform a secure erase. The -f will keep it from prompting for approval. The -r will recurse through and directories of files in the trash. The -v will display the progress while deleting so you can see how things are going, and have an idea of how much progress you are making.
Be very careful with srm, as if you point it at the wrong directory it could delete something you care about, or a lot of somethings.
If there are files that srm -f will not delete, then you bring out the sudo command. But be VERY CAREFUL with sudo, as you can delete a lot more than just a few files you care about.
sudo srm -f -r -v ~/.Trash/*
Password: you enter your account's password here, assuming you are the admin of the Mac.

"Secure Empty Trash" Didn't Clear Space on HD

How can I reallly clear the space formerly occupied by BackUp files?
When I used "Secure Empty Trash" after putting lots of BackUp files in the Trash, there was no change in the amount of available HD space. I have about 10GB of applications and files on a 60GB HD, so there should be about 45 GB of free space, but there's only 4 GB available.
FWIW, I've Repaired Permissions (only a few were necessary) and Restarted to no avail. I've used "Secure Empty Trash" to remove another file, and it worked just fine!
So how can I clear the part of my HD that I asssume is written with random 0s and 1s left by "Secure Empty Trash", not real files?

John:
Thanks for hanging in there with me! As you knew it would, WhatSize worked.
It identified the old Backup files (that the Finder didn't) and transferred them to the Trash. I used Secure Empty Trash delete them. This time it worked correctly and I have space for Backups again, thank-you very much!
If you have any idea why it didn't work the first time, I'd appreciate knowing it. I've never used it before, so I don't know if it has a repuitation for being buggy or otherwise problematic.
The name "WhatSize" was a little misleading.... I initially thought it would just do what the Finder's View > Show View Options > Calculate all sizes command does. Some of the comments on the Version Tracker site supported that idea, so as the stubborn Dutchman that I am was reluctant to do something that might make matters worse.
I also never considered the possibility that using Secure Empty Trash (as I had) would convert files into hidden files..... especially since I've never had such an experience in uising standard Empty Trash in 25+ years of Apple II and Mac use.
As you expected, I have learned that lots of HD space is devoted to hidden files (that once were visible in the "old days", if I'm not mistaken).
In any case, I very much appreciate your wisdom and willingness to keep replying when I didn't take your suggestion! Thanks!
Cheers!!
Dick

Does Using Secure Empty Trash Put Stress on My Hard Drive?

Whenever I empty my trash I use Secure Empty Trash even if it's not for sensitive files. Are there any benefits to using this feature - does it free up better hard drive space for new files to be saved to than just Empty Trash? And does it put a lot of stress on my hard drive as it works harder emptying trash this way? I'm using an early 2008 15" MacBook Pro with Leopard 10.5.8 but will soon be upgrading to Snow Leopard.

If you are secure deleting very large blocks of files, as you've already seen, sure it does put more stress on the system - takes much longer, has the HD doing a lot of writes to disk, produces more heat, ramps up the fans, etc.
To what extent that ultimately makes in the lifespan of the drive is hard to say - depend how often you use secure delete, and on how much data at a time. Secure deleting a handful of personal files at a time seems pretty trivial to me, but routinely secure deleting thousands of files taking up Gb's of disk space may cause a drive to fail earlier than it otherwise might.
Basically, I only use it when I am deleting personal data files that I specifically want to be unrecoverable (eg. I have a copy of my will on my MBP, whenever I have made changes in my will, I have secure deleted the old version as I do not want it to be recoverable, same thing for old tax records outside the statute of limitations for the IRS to poke back into).

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

Hi, Question about secure empty trash. I moved some Time Machine backup files to the trash from an external hard drive. Now I can't secure empty trash. It starts, finds 74,003 files, and does nothing. The external hard drive shows it's empty, but it isn't

I moved some time machine backup files from an external USB hard drive to the trash. Tried secure empty trash. It counts 74,003 items, then just sits there. The external hard drive window shows it's empty, but the info pane says it only has 50G of memory left. I left the secure empty trash on over night. It did nothing. Ideas?
Thanks,
Ron

Relaunch the Finder, then from the Finder menu bar, select
Finder ▹ Preferences ▹ Advanced
and uncheck the box marked Empty Trash securely. Try again to empty the Trash.

Secure empty trash very slow

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for