Mac OS - Trashed files do not empty

Mac OS - Trashed files do not empty

Problem

When A Mac user tries to empty their trash store.  Either the trash fails to empty so there are always items left there or the operation produces error message.

Applies to

  1. Macbook
  2. Mac

Resolution

You can force delete of trash files if there was a problem emptying Trash.

  1. Press COMMAND+SPACE then enter the command Terminal and press ENTER.  The Terminal app will launch.
  2. Within Terminal window at the command prompt enter/copy the text shown below and leave the cursor at the end of the command line and proceed directly to the next step.

    sudo rm -rf 

  3. Leave the Terminal window open and click on the the Trash icon in the dock to bring up the list of trashed files.
  4. Drag one or more files into the terminal window command line.  The files will then show at the end of the command entered in step two above.
  5. Then press ENTER to run the command.
  6. When prompted respond in Terminal by typing the Mac logon password and press ENTER.  Files will then be permanently deleted from the trash area.
  7. Then return to the Finder window of trashed files, this window should show no files in it now.


Note
The above steps have been verified up to Mac OS 14 Sonoma.


Further action

If the above does not help pleases consider using Disk Utility for repairing disk permissions.  Afterwards try the steps above to remove trashed files.

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