Secure Trash Freezes

Hey, hope someone can help.
Whenever i do empty trash securely, i get an unusually high number for files being deleted (for example, 6 items in trash, and yet 17,000 items to be deleted?) and also, it always seems to crash whenever it gets near the end. Last night i left it on 1 item left to be deleted for over an hour... Lastly, is it meant to take so long? I'm doing it at the moment, only had 6 items to delete. It's been running for an hour and claims to have 4,100 items to delete..

What items are in your trash? Is it typical for you to trash so many items at once?
I mention this because sometimes one can accidentally drop entire files into the trash without knowing it; you could be dumping important system files. Which raises the question: why are so many items being trashed. (E.g., are you trying to make extra HD space?) In this case, it could be that the system is preventing you from trashing items that are essential for use. Some items don't look important, but they are.
Possible solutions:
1. Don't secure trash. If the items aren't worthy of secure trashing, you can dump them like any ordinary file.
2. Put your Trash in the Desktop. Make several empty folders so you can fill them with smaller quantities of trash. Secure trash takes up a lot of time and memory, so incremental trashing makes more sense.
3. Alternatively, Put your trash on the desktop and empty everything but the things you'd want in the Secure Trash. It's not possible that you'd have so many pieces of Secure Trash, so that might make your job easier.

Similar Messages

How to securely trash items that are locked

I am trying to securely trash the files in my trash but i get error message 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?" and it stops me from deleting the files. what shall I do to overcome this problem.

Select the item in the Finder, choose Get Info from the File menu, and uncheck the Locked checkbox.
(28958)

I inadvertently trashed my Iphoto library. Can it be retrieved like in Windows, you just go to a prior saved recovery point? It wasn't securely trashed, just trashed.

I inadvertently trashed my Iphoto library. Can I retrieve it, like one can restore to an earlier time period on Windows? I trashed it but I did not use secure trash.

if you are running Time Machine - launch it and go back to the time you want, select the iPhoot library and click restore
Step 1 - launch Time Machine (either click on it in the DOCK or double click on it in the applications folder)
Step 2 - in the resulting window (which looks like a finder window) go back in time to when your iPhoto library had not been trashed
Step 3 - select the iPhoto library at that time (by default it is in your pictures folder)
Step 4 - Click on "RESTORE" and restore the iPhoto library from before it was trashed
Step 5 launch iPhoto (click on iPhoto in the DOCK or double click on it in the applications folder)
You do not copy or directly access the TM backup - as noted you use TM to restore the iPhoto library
Additionally, I would assume that I should start from scratch. Access and delete/trash all the pictures that I've since imported from a disk that I had save them too a year ago, in effect leave Iphoto empty before attempting any restore/import of the file, if possible. Yes?
No do not delete anything until this is all sorted out - and if you restore properly you certainly will not have to start over
LN

I accidentally hit the stop (x) button when the "empty secure trash" process was going on. Have I screwed up my computer? Can I continue the "Empty Secure Trash" later?

I was cleaning my caches which was taking forever to clean up. (more than 4 hours). I accidentally hit the stop (x) button when the "empty secure trash" process was going on. Have I screwed up my computer? Can I continue the "Empty Secure Trash" later?

Just restart your computer. Then go to Finder menu and change 'Secure empty trash' to Empty trash.
Unless you work with state secrets you really don't need secure empty trash which takes seven times longer to do its job. Empty trash is fine for all but the afore-mentioned secret files.

Secure Trash Issues

I am not sure when this started but I believe that Secure Trash since 10.4 runs way too slow. When I used it previously it did take more time to delete but not hours.
It does not matter what type of file I use, or how many I put in there, it says "items to delete 6" when I only put in one file and it won't stop emptying when I tell it to.
Message was edited by: Jeffery Mason

Perhaps you have some hidden files that are still in the trash. These files maybe large and as secure erase does 32x pass it does take a longtime with large files.

Logout, sleep, and secure trash empty

When securely emptying trash, the system goes to sleep, then tries to log out if the system is left unattended while trash is securely being emptied. When I go to wake the system, I have to log in (expected from reading other threads); however, the secure trash emptying prevented finder from quitting (the "Finder can't quit becaused some operations are in progress" and the "Trash" emptying window still active diolog window appears after relogging in) and the login items closed during the logout do not reopen after logging in. Energy saver is temporarily set for the system to not sleep due to a very large amount of files that need deleting.

Open the Security & Privacy pane of System Preferences and turn off automatic logout.
(81269)

Imac freezes when deleting secure trash

I have been having trouble with imac recently. freezes when using AE CS6 during rendering stage, convering videos in quicktime, emptying secrue trash, just upgraded RAM to 16GB, just upgraded OS to Mountain Lion.

Hello, see how many of these you can answer...
See if the Disk is issuing any S.M.A.R.T errors in Disk Utility...
http://support.apple.com/kb/PH7029
Open Activity Monitor in Applications>Utilities, select All Processes & sort on CPU%, any indications there?
How much RAM & free space do you have also, click on the Memory & Disk Usage Tabs.
Open Console in Utilities & see if there are any clues or repeating messages when this happens.
In the Memory tab, are there a lot of Pageouts?
I wouldn't expect Pageouts with 16 GB of RAM, but...

How do I disable secure trash in Lion?

Is it possible to reset the trash back to the way it worked before I upgraded (?) to Lion? The 'empty trash securely' checkbox in the Finder prefs is not checked.

the trash empties securely every time. I don't want that. I want the option to simply collect the trash, to empty when I'm ready to do so.
It wasn't much of a problem until I deleted something important today, by accident.
I'm not sure what problem you are actually describing.
You keep using the term "secure empty trash, which is a feature that acts on items that are already in the Trash, having been moved there normally. "Secure empty trash" then deletes those items by overwriting them so that data-recovery software cannot later retrieve them. It is a much slower process than emptying the Trash normally.
Is that what you are seeing, or are you instead experiencing a completely different problem such that you can't store items in the Trash at all, possibly with a warning like this when you try to move things there:

Unable to empty secure trash

Hi,
Everytime I hit secure empty trash, the OS X Mavericks couting number of items trash. And come up with pop up screen with options Remove unlocked items, Remove All Items.
Nothing happens, whatever options that I choose.
Has anyone experience with this situation before?
Thanks,
Sandy

Go to /Applications /Utilities/Terminal and launch it.
At the prompt, copy and paste this command
sudo chflags nouchg ~/.Trash/*
Press 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.

Secure Trash - lacie external hard drive

Bough a new external Lacie Hard drive..
works well, straight out of the box but;
It wont "SECURE" empty trash.
drag the items into ordinary trash, and away they go (do they realy?)
empty trash, OK -
but "SECURE EMPTY TRASH" and it just sits there trying to delete (the blue rolling bar appears,) but nothing happens.. it just sits there, even overnight.
Im concerned that sensitive documents and data stored on the lacie is not being destroyed?
any thoughts??
many thanks..

Please explain how you you are attempting to perform this operation on the ext. drive. The "Secure Empty Trash" option should not affect your ext. HD in any way. This option overwrites the trash file with zeros. Since the trash file is located on your primary ("boot") system drive, it should in no way touch the data on your ext. drive.

Secure trash frozen. (09' MBP running Yosemite)

I am working on a mid 2009 MBP running the latest Yosemite software. I am in the process of securely deleting the trash, however the items to be deleted has not moved in over 5 minutes. The old way running terminal does not work with Yosemite. So, I am starting out with 54 items to be deleted. Is there a better way on doing this? Should it be faster than this? Do you think it's the computer?

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 Trash Deletion

How do I securely delete files in the trash?

Supplementary:
OSX 10.6.8 only has the secure empty option and I have had it running very nearly 24 hours and still 58,000 files to go! (started at 330,000)
The files I am deleting are actually on the Formac 320GB external hard-drive I use for Super-duper back up & got there because I had to copy them from an older Hard Drive (LaCie 160 GB) which only has a Firewire 400 port; they are the Super-duper back up from a G4 powerbook on its last legs. The computer I have transferred them to (MacBook pro 2009) only has a Firewire 800 port.
Maybe I should have tried an ethernet network, but hadn't realised how long doing it what seemed the quick way would take.
Or is there something else I am not seeing?
MacBook pro 15" 2008 & 2009 models OS10.6.8 & G4 PowerBook OS10.4.8 (needed torun Classic)

Regular and Secure Trash...

Hi, all.
What is the real difference between just "Emptying" the trash and "Secure Empty" it ???
I tried to find info, but found nothing.
Also, in the trash window, it always shows the option "Secure Empty". I remember in Tiger that the default was just "Empty"
How do I change that trash default in Leopard to be just "Empty" (not secure) ???
Thanx !!

Empty trash just unlinks the "file" from the space on the disk where the file is physically located. This allows other files to be written on top of the data on disk. Secure erase will write either zeros or random garbage to the data as well as unlinking the data from the "file".
In the finder's preferences (Finder Menu --> Preferences) in the "Advanced" section you can select whether or not to have secure empty trash be default.

[solved] Hard disk security parameters freeze during boot

Hi fellow archers!
Currently I am trying to pin point a problem I have. I have an old PC of mine setup as some kind of experimental playground. My problem is that the security options of my driver become frozen during powering up this PC. It is a fresh and empty Arch installation with just sshd running and no services has been installed that should set the drive security-freeze. I am trying to figure out who is locking it, my current suspicion is the mainboard/BIOS itself, but I need to be sure, that there is no script during executing Arch boot setting the freeze parameter. -- Oh if someone one if the ASUS A8N32-SLI is doing such nasty stuff, it would be great to know.
Thanks in advance for your feedback
Last edited by jpk (2011-10-15 13:19:20)

Hi, it's not really a fix for the problem, but I now know what happens. It is really the mainboard BIOS who freezes the security state of my hdds. So what I did was to build a power switch for my hdd. During boot I switch the power and linux will detect the sata drive (haven't tested it with IDE drives) and I can work with it.

Iphoto - slideshow in trash freezing Iphoto

I moved an iphoto slideshow to trash yesterday and now cannot empty the trash as any attempt to click on the slideshow or empy the trash brings up the rainbow ball and I have to force quit. I have tried reorganising my itunes media files but they are already organised and that isn't an option. Any suggestions on solving this problem would br very much appreciated.

Launch the Console application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Console in the icon grid.
Make sure the title of the Console window is All Messages. If it isn't, select All Messages from the SYSTEM LOG QUERIES menu on the left. If you don't see that menu, select
View ▹ Show Log List
from the menu bar.
Click the Clear Display icon in the toolbar. Then try the action that you're having trouble with again. Select any messages that appear in the Console window. Copy them to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C. Paste into a reply to this message (command-V).
When posting a log extract, be selective. In most cases, a few dozen lines are more than enough.
Please do not indiscriminately dump thousands of lines from the log into this discussion.
Important: Some private information, such as your name, may appear in the log. Anonymize before posting.

Secure Trash Freezes

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