Comments on: Trash won’t empty? The ultimate guide to deleting stubborn files

By: Dr Green

Dr Green — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 13:46:57 +0000

Best working solution given by Dez Miklos at the following link–works very well–takes a few minutes but fixes the problem.

http://forums.cnet.com/7723-6126_102-365518/trash-refusing-to-empty-comes-up-with-error-code-8003/

By: Logan

Logan — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 19:01:58 +0000

I have two items that wont delete out of my trash. Their called “±Ê!␀␀␀.␀␀␀” and “y¨â€`©ò.ÂÐv”.
tried force emptying, terminal trickery, unlocking, and renaming, with no luck. :/

By: EmmyK

EmmyK — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 17:06:15 +0000

I tried almost all of these, even Trash IT! didn’t work. (I’d stupidly moved some Time Machine backups to the Trash from an external HD).
I just ejected the external drive and the trash emptied immediately. was actually a simple fix, and of course I’ll use Time Machine to delete backups going forward. Lesson learned. but thanks for your help.

By: Meehei

Meehei — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 11:51:48 +0000

The option key did it for me thanks!

By: Gary in CO

Gary in CO — Sat, 12 Nov 2011 15:42:54 +0000

Sydney,

I think you’re screwed. I’ve had this bite me more than once. Apple dropped the ball on this one (you shouldn’t be allowed to trash files/folders if it is going to hose your operating system’s performance.

I’ve never found a way to get around this other than reformatting the drive. YOU’LL LOSE EVERYTHING ON THE DRIVE when you do.

I made the mistake of moving Time Machine’s target drive to my external data drive when my original Time Machine drive croaked. My offsite backup provider has decided they won’t allow an external drive to have any time machine files on it (even if they are excluded from their backup).

Major pain in the behind. Macs are becoming more like MS Windows everyday. I’m growing tired of it. :(

If you’re brave, you can look at http://www.thexlab.com/faqs/trash.html
and at least get the other files out of your trash. But I eventually think you’ll have to reformat that Time Machine drive to eliminate the empty trash errors.

By: Sydney

Sydney — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 23:31:54 +0000

was deleting old Time Machine back up files from hard drive via Finder (never gonna do that again!) We had no problem doing this with quite a few TM back up files, yesterday. This morning I resumed the deletion of files to make room on the external HD, but the trash can won’t empty. Error code 8003

I have tried opening the Trash, right click and select “put back” but I get the following error message:

“The operation can’t be completed because backup items can’t be modified.”

There are two files in my Trash:

both are folders located at: /Volumes/MAC TERRA/.Trashes/503

I have tried using Trash It, but no luck.

Also tried to use disk utility – first aid but I’m not sure what to do here. I selected our external HD (MAC TERRA) and clicked on verify disk and after it ran, got message that drive appears to be okay. Also, noticed that while I am running the disk utility for the ext HD (MAC TERRA) the trash can on the desktop bar appears empty!

However, If I run disk utility on our Mac HD the trash can shows up full again? Also, when I run “verify disk permissions” on our Mac HD (option greyed out for ext HD) I do get a long list of permissions that show up, but I’m afraid to click “repair permissions” because this is a hackintosh and I have no idea if permissions are set up different for a hackintosh versus a regular mac?

I have also tried the “Secure Empty Trash” idea, but doesn’t work. Same error message :(

Any advice on what to do would be appreciated! Also, need it in “for dummies” terms since I am not a MAC whiz ;)

By: brett Houghton

brett Houghton — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 06:57:46 +0000

Thanks worked first time and saved me a real hassle

By: Joel

Joel — Sat, 08 Oct 2011 14:55:53 +0000

did the sudo and worked like a charm! thank you!

By: Abbey

Abbey — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 04:53:06 +0000

Hi!

I have evidently done the absolute no-no of attempting to clear space on my external by manually deleting old back ups in finder. I’ve begun to try and put the back ups back where they were in order to delete them properly but I don’t know if this is going to do anything because now the space on the external is down to about 10GB with something like 3,000,000 items that were in the trash. What should I do? Even if this copy works, I really don’t know how to properly do this. I’m also quite nervous to restart my machine because I am now without actual back-ups! Ahh… this has become such a disaster, it seems like you have the solution.. PLEASE HELP!! Thanks!!

By: Tim

Tim — Sat, 10 Sep 2011 03:23:47 +0000

My trash can says it has 8,988 files in it. When I click “empty trash” a progress bar comes up that says to delete 17,009 files. When it reaches this number, it freezes to a grayed screen displaying the message” You need to restart the computer. Hold down power button fore several seconds or press the restart button.” So i just restart my computer, and can never delete my trash.

By: Andy

Andy — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 09:15:26 +0000

Worked for me a treat, 2.3 gig of trash cleaned out, thanks for taking time to put this into clear, easy to read and understand English. :)

By: Kyriacos

Kyriacos — Sun, 28 Aug 2011 06:58:10 +0000

Thanks for the instructions, Fixed!

By: John

John — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 17:59:14 +0000

I have the EXACT same problem as Kyle. It was a Bootcamp folder as well. Have no idea what to do. HELP!

By: T

Wed, 01 Jun 2011 18:30:56 +0000

Thank you so much, I couldn’t empty my trash, and holding the Option and then pressing secure empty trash emptied it right away.

By: Sax

Sax — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 02:51:00 +0000

Similar issue with me.
On secure empty of the trash I get following Message “The operation can’t be completed because the item “Demos” is in use.” I have searched the trash and don’t have a “Demos” in my trash.
Any suggestions gratefully appreciated.

By: Kat

Kat — Sat, 12 Mar 2011 21:52:14 +0000

I’m having the same issue as John T although there’s a heck of a lot more than just Time Machine files in my trash. I’ve been using Tinker Tool System 2 for years and, until recently, it always emptied trash fine. Have tried every solution on this page now. All still there.
Anyone have any insight?

I have run out of room on my hard drive and 1T external hd!!!

Thanks,
Kat

By: chris

chris — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 12:01:44 +0000

i have 41,000,000+ items in my trash can…. tried the methods above with no luck, they are associated with an external usb, three folders two in greyed out text. Opening one folder releases a stream of other folders with what looks like individual files named from text taken from a block of text. reformat the usb?

By: Laya

Laya — Sun, 13 Feb 2011 16:03:13 +0000

Awesome! Force delete worked really well

By: John T

John T — Sat, 12 Feb 2011 15:51:26 +0000

My Time Machine deleted its oldest backups to make room for a new backup and now I have 7 Gb of files in the trash can that just will not allow themselves to be deleted. These files are from the Windows 7 NTFS partition on the Mac. I have tried all the Empty / Secure Empty options and Third party Trash can emptiers, have tried the Terminal command line suggestions (just wrecked my profile and had to restore my last backup)… I have been slowly removing files that I am able to remove to a folder and deleting them on another profile but there are still about 100,000 to go. Random files within the Trashcan when deleted cause the Mac to crash and there are stacks of those… At my wits end and I’m sure there is a way to do this.. Open to new suggestions Thanks johnT

By: Lori

Lori — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 18:18:34 +0000

Thank you so much!!!

By: Kyle

Kyle — Thu, 16 Dec 2010 08:21:24 +0000

I have a file that’s 4KB in the trash, it won’t empty, normally or securely. Or with the terminal command.

It was a folder originally from my bootcamp partition, now it’s just a small file that ” sorta ” opens in terminal. When I say sorta I mean it doesn’t do much and terminal doesn’t seem to like it.

If I empty normally, it makes the sound of emptying, but everything but this file is deleted. When I secure empty trash I get the error ” the finder can’t complete the operation because some data in “care package” can’t be read or written. (Error code -36)

When I tried the terminal way, after typing “exit” it said process complete, but the fucking thing STILL didn’t delete.

Help appreciated.

By: dan

dan — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 04:25:15 +0000

problem solved. Relocated the files back to the external drive, then just hooked the drive up to a pc…delete, empty recycle bin…voila!

By: dan

dan — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 04:11:09 +0000

I have an external back (Not configured as a time maching backup drive) FAT32 format from which I have deleted two directory folders. These folders were backed up from a PC that was long ago retired. The directories each contain three folders ‘my pictures’ ‘my documents’ ‘my music’ and are all empty…they will not empty from my MBP OS 10.5.8 trashbin. The resulting message says that I have insufficient permissions for some of these items. None of the steps listed above worked including using the sudo command in the terminal. Any thoughts?

By: Richie

Richie — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 14:26:01 +0000

I had stubborn trash files that wouldn’t empty. I was using “Secure Empty Trash,” and wasn’t sure that one of the force-trash emptiers would delete the files securely. So I went into the trash can and changed the filenames.

Like magic, the trash emptied securely!