can't empty trash!

[narreth]

ive been having problems where there's always a file (usually a movie) stuck in my trash that cant be deleted. it always says the file is in use when it isnt in use. every few weeks it changes to something else ive tried to delete. how can i get rid of the file?

 

[rivan]

Option click on the trash can, then select empty trash. Or hold option when you select "Empty Trash" from the finder menu.

 

[narreth]

i've tried that, but it doesn't work!

 

[Kmax82]

Can you empty once you've restarted? Only time I've had this happen is when something truly was using the file, but it didn't appear like it was.

 

[TheStu]

Is this on the primary drive or another?

 

[narreth]

primary drive

 

[TheStu]

In Disk Utility (and I almost never recommend this since I feel that it is over recommended) try repair disk permissions and then repairing the disk.

Next question, in the event that doesn't work, do you have windows on that computer? Or another computer that you can put that drive into?

 

[alfa147x]

In Disk Utility (and I almost never recommend this since I feel that it is over recommended) try repair disk permissions and then repairing the disk.

If that does not work try booting from the 10.6 disk and run the disk utility from there

 

[narreth]

restarting and emptying the trash worked. thanks alot!
but one other thing is i find my HDD is starting to get sluggish, as in programs take longer to load etc, and the computer on the whole is starting to feel slower. is there a disk defrag or some kinda utililty to speed up my computer?

 

[TheStu]

HFS+ shouldn't need defraging, the file system writes data in such a way that it shouldn't be a problem. What might be causing it is latent processes in the background, you might want to fire up Activity Monitor after your system has been on for a while, see whats what.

 

[sourceninja]

I have this problem because time machine or crashplan was in the middle of backing up the file when I deleted it.

My solution is to wait until the backup finishes, or just open terminal, cd to the file's location and use rm to delete it.

 

[TheStu]

I run into this on occasion when I delete NTFS files from OS X, especially if I am deleting a lot of them.

 

[doh123]

I've run into this now and then... but I'm a linux geek, so on OSX its just as easy for me to open Terminal and go in and sudo force a delete and its gone.

 

[Plester]

I caused the same problem when I aborted a windows installation on a boot camp partition - deleting the bootcamp partition fixed it.

 

[lancerocke]

i still can't empty mine.
unfortunately, i dont have a windows, or linux install on here.
i tries sudo -s them rm -rf /Volumes/931gb/.Trashes
i tried downloading 3rd party, force empty trash apps.
i tried control apple key shift backspace.
only thing i didnt try is repair disk permissions because i dont want to ruin my ntfs drive
im using paragon

 

[TheStu]

i still can't empty mine.
unfortunately, i dont have a windows, or linux install on here.
i tries sudo -s them rm -rf /Volumes/931gb/.Trashes
i tried downloading 3rd party, force empty trash apps.
i tried control apple key shift backspace.
only thing i didnt try is repair disk permissions because i dont want to ruin my ntfs drive
im using paragon

So you don't have Windows or Linux installed, but you have an NTFS drive?

Also, I don't think that you can repair permissions on an NTFS drive.

Get a Linux LiveCD and delete the .trashes file that way.