Can't Empty the Trash

vja4Him

vja4Him

Registered
I still cannot empty the trash! Tons of error messages keep popping up:

The operation cannot be completed because the item "wmphelp.htm" is locked"
-- WMPIcon.gif is locked
-- windowshade.gif is locked
-- whatsnew.htm is locked
-- volume.gif is locked
-- viewinginfo.htm is locked
-- upgradingwmp.htm is locked
-- understandingwm.htm is locked
-- understandingstream.htm is locked

and hundreds, maybe even thousands of similar messages appear!! I must empty the trash. What can I do???

I don't see any of these items in the trash?

Help ... !!! Thanks.
 
What is in the trash? What I would try is click on the Finder menu then click on "Secure empty trash."

Hope this helps
 
I posted the text at the end as a reply to a tech question, good for unlocking stuff in the trash. Read carefully before you try them

The issue is you can't see the items I guess. You can look for invisible files in the trash by goign to the terminal and writing this and pressing return

Code: 
cd /Users/YourShortUserName/.Trash/
Where YourShortUserName is the.... short version of you username :)

Then type this and hit return
Code: 
ls -la

And tell us what it shows.

--------Unlocking Tip for when you find the files----------

Hi xxxxxx,

A search on the apple website revealed this tip for mass unlocking all the files in your trashcan

"Advanced tip about deleting locked files

If there are several locked files in the Trash, you can unlock them all at the same time at the command line. Follow these steps:

Open Terminal. It's located in /Applications/Utilities.

Type: chflags -R nouchg
Note: Type one space (not pictured) after nouchg in the line above, so that it ends in "nouchg ". Do not press Return yet.
Double-click the Trash icon in the Dock to reveal the contents of the Trash. If necessary, arrange the Finder window so that a portion of the Terminal window is still visible.
Press the Command-A key combination to select all files in the Trash.
Drag the files from the Trash to the Terminal window.
Note: This automatically enters the pathname for each file. This eliminates the need to individually empty multiple Trash directories, particularly when multiple disks or volumes are present.
Press Return. No special text message will be shown indicating that the command was successful.
Empty the Trash.

If the Trash does not empty or if you see a message in Terminal that says "usage: chflags [-R [-H | -L | -P]] flags file..." you most likely did not type the text in step 2 as indicated or did not leave a space. Repeat the steps if this happens."
Click to expand...
 
You should just be able to hold down the option key and select "Empty trash" to delete locked items (bear in mind that a "locked" file is different from a file you don't have permission to erase).
 
Ah, good point EDCC, the trip i posted was for files that refused to delete that way.
 
ElDiabloConCaca said:
You should just be able to hold down the option key and select "Empty trash" to delete locked items (bear in mind that a "locked" file is different from a file you don't have permission to erase).
Click to expand...

I tried the trick to empty the trash while holding down the Option key.That worked! I'm still curious why there are so many files that appear when I was trying to empty the trash, that were not allowing me to empty the trash ...

Are those invisible files? Or corrupted files (invisible?) files?
 
Because, as the error message stated, those files were "locked" -- if you do a "get info" on any file in the Finder, you will see a checkbox for locking a file. Locking a file prevents accidental deletion, as well as other things.

A lot of times, files transferred to a Mac from a PC will end up being locked due to the way Mac OS X interprets certain bits or flags set on the files from the PC.
 
ElDiabloConCaca said:
Because, as the error message stated, those files were "locked" -- if you do a "get info" on any file in the Finder, you will see a checkbox for locking a file. Locking a file prevents accidental deletion, as well as other things.

A lot of times, files transferred to a Mac from a PC will end up being locked due to the way Mac OS X interprets certain bits or flags set on the files from the PC.
Click to expand...

I already was aware of the locked files, and how to unlock them, but the problem is that all of the files that were being listed in the error message were NOT in the Trash! I was not trying to delte any of those files that were not allowing the Trash to empty!
 
Were you trying to delete an application that was in the trash? Maybe some kind of Windows Media Player application?

If you were trying to delete an application, be aware that a lot of applications are application "bundles" -- in the Finder, they look and feel like a single file... but they're actually folders, made to look like a single, double-clickable application file. If you were trying to delete an application, and that application was actually an application bundle, then the bundle could include many files in the application bundle folder structure.
 
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