If you’re facing issues getting rid of all the files in the Trash on your Mac, you’ll want to force empty Trash on those Mac files. It’ll force the files to be deleted letting you have an empty Trash app on your Mac machine.
There are various factors that may cause your Trash not to get emptied on a Mac. Maybe your files are locked and this is preventing you from what you’re doing. Or maybe there are other issues with the files in the Trash that prevent the entire task of emptying the Trash from being executed.
Regardless, you have several ways to get around the issue on your machine. You can start from the most simplest and then work your way up with more complex ones until you find the method that works for you.
Quit The App That Was Using The File
One of the reasons why you can’t empty the Trash on your Mac is because one of the files in there is being used by an app on your machine. You’ll need to first close the app that uses the file and you’ll then be able to clean-up the Trash.
While on any screen, press the Command + Option + Esc keyboard shortcut.
Jun 10, 2020 How to secure empty Trash on macOS Catalina 1. Force empty trash using Terminal. Before we begin, a note. You can make a mess of things with Apple’s Terminal. It’s crucial to understand the commands and type them without errors. If you start to sweat a bit just reading this, move on. There are alternatives. Otherwise, here we go. Aug 14, 2019 When Trash isn’t working properly, it usually means that an app or document is still running and you need to force empty Trash on your Mac. There are a number of ways to do that; in this article we cover five top tips if your Mac Trash is not emptying. Automatically detect an application moved to the Trash and delete its related files. Tools. Manage a list of favorite applications and store registration info securely - Clean macOS caches to solve some issues and free up hard disk space - Force empty your Trash when some files can't be.
A box will appear listing the current open apps on your Mac. Click on the one you think is using your Trash file and then hit the Force Quit button.
Once the app is closed, you’ll be able to empty the Trash.
Restart To Force Empty Trash on Mac
One of the simple solutions you can try to fix the issue is to reboot your Mac. The reason why you’re suggested to do it is because rebooting your machine closes all the apps and clears the contents of RAM.
Force Empty Trash Mac Terminal
If any of these elements were preventing the Trash from being emptied, rebooting your Mac should fix the issue for you. Also, it’s easy and quick to do and does no harm to your machine.
Click on the Apple logo at the top-left corner and select Restart.
When the Mac restarts, right-click on the Trash and select Empty Trash.
Force Empty Trash on Mac Using The Safe Mode
If you still can’t get your Mac OS X Trash icon to empty, it may be that there’s a startup app preventing the Trash from being cleaned-up. The app launches at each reboot and so rebooting your Mac also doesn’t help in fixing the issue.
In this case, your best option is to use the Mac safe mode. It’ll only load the essential files for booting.
Reboot your Mac and hold down Shift when it boots-up.
Empty the Trash as you would normally.
Unlock Files Before Emptying The Trash
Certain locked files may cause issues with the procedure to force empty Trash on your Mac. Since these files are locked, they need to be first unlocked before you can remove them when you empty the Trash.
Locking and unlocking files are actually pretty easy on a Mac and you can do it as the following.
Right-click on the locked file and select Get Info.
Untick the box that says Locked and the file will be unlocked.
Empty the Trash as you would normally and it’ll work without any issues.
Delete The Problematic Files Individually In The Trash
A single or a few files may cause your entire Trash not to go empty. If this is the case with you, you might want to find the files that you think are problematic and first remove them individually.
Once that’s done, you can go ahead and empty the entire Trash at once.
Click on the Trash icon to open it.
Find the file you think is problematic, right-click on it, and select Delete Immediately.
Do it until your issue is resolved.
Force Empty Trash on Mac Using Terminal
Where graphical user interfaces often fails, Terminal works and gets the job done for you. You can use this command line app to empty the Trash as well. There’s a command you can use in the tool that cleans up all the files currently residing in the Trash on your Mac.
Launch Terminal from the Launchpad on your Mac.
Type in the following command and hit Enter. sudo rm -rf ~/.Trash
Since it’s a sudo command, you’ll be asked to enter your password. Do so and continue.
When the command is executed, your Trash will be empty.
Securely Empty Trash on Mac
When it comes to emptying the Trash on Mac, you actually have two ways to do it. Other than the normal right-click and empty option, you have one more option that’s visible when you’ve opened the Trash on your Mac.
You can use the option to securely erase all the files in the Trash. It should fix the issue that prevents you from emptying your Trash.
Open the Trash on your Mac.
Click on the Finder menu at the top and select Secure Empty Trash.
Use a Third-Party App To Force Empty Trash on Mac
In most cases, the default methods should get the issue fixed for you and you should have no issues emptying the Trash. However, if you haven’t been able to get any of those methods to work, you might want to look into third-party apps to see if something’s available.
There’s actually a free app available called Trash It! that lets you empty the Trash on your Mac with a single-click. It can also be used to delete individual files from your Mac if emptying the Trash is not what you want to do straightaway.
Download the Trash It! app on your Mac.
Open the app and it’ll empty your Trash.
That’s all there is to it.
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2. Mac Software
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4. Mac Troubleshooting
5. Mac OS
by Jenefey AaronUpdated on 2019-07-25 / Update for Mac Data
If you are using Mac, then putting any file in Trash means that files have been marked for permanent deletion. But for the moment it is only marked, until you empty the trash the file will still exist inside the trashcan, just like in real life. If you have a lot of free space on the device then you can neglect to empty the trashcan but what if you need space or out of fear that someone may get those files from your computer, you are thinking of completely eliminating those files. So, how to empty trash on Mac, the procedure is very easy and it is elaborated below in this detailed guide.
How to Secure Empty Trash on Mac
Mac works a bit differently! On most devices just clearing the trash is enough to get rid of those unwanted files but if you are using Mac then you should know that those files aren’t being deleted. They are still on your Mac, just waiting to be overwritten next time you need space. This is the reason some of the trashed files can be recovered. But the problem is that some of us sometimes handle some very sensitive information that can not fall into the wrong hands under any circumstances.
This is the reason Apple has introduced the feature called Secure Empty Trash. Using this you can secure empty trash Mac, it will overwrite the deleted files with useless data. How to clear trash on Mac? The guide is mentioned below:
Step 1: First of all, if you use the Secure Trash then it will take longer to get rid of those files.
Step 2: So, open your Mac and click and hold on the Trashcan.
Step 3: Now, hold the Command Key and just click on the Trash.
Step 4: Then, Empty Trash will be converted to Secure Trash.
Step 5: If you want to do it from the Finder window, it will be easier. Just click on Finder menu and choose Secure Empty Trash.
As you can see using the Secure Trash feature is very easy and doing it will definitely protect all of your important files from falling into the wrong hands.
How to Solve If You Cannot Empty Trash on Mac
All of these years if you just sent the files to trashcan then it took a lot of space of your device but what if you tried to remove them from the trashcan but you were unable to do that. The only way remains is to force empty trash Mac. But, do you know how to delete trash on Mac forcibly? Well, you can find the answer below.
If the file is still being used:
Step 1: Then you have to stop any app that is using that particular file.
Step 2: If it does not work then the app may have more than one background processes going on. So, you have to restart the Mac and then empty the trash.
Step 3: Unfortunately, if that does not work then the only way to delete the file is to enter safe mode and empty the trash.
If the problem is different:
Step 1: Then run MacOS Recovery by tapping Command plus R key and when the Utility interface appears you have to click on “Disk Utility” and after that click “Continue”.
Step 2: In the Disk Utility you must choose the disk that contains that file you need to delete, now, you have to use the First Aid feature to fix the disk.
Step 3: Finally, quit Disk Utility, restart the Mac and then empty the trash.
How to Recover If You Accidentally Deleted Files on Mac
The entire article is based on how you can empty the trash on your Mac if it does not automatically perform that task. But what if one day you fixed that problem and cleared the trash and realized that there was a very important file that you sent to the trash which you need urgently. There are not a lot of ways to recover the lost files on Mac. The company will suggest some intricate procedure which may or may not solve your problem but there is no way you would rely on that uncertainty for the most important file of your life.
So, the best way to recover your file is to use a third-party tool called Tenorshare Any Data Recovery. This tool is able to recover any lost or deleted or formatted data within a few minutes. Here’s how you can operate the program:
Step 1: You need to start by download and install the app on your Mac device.
Step 2: Now, run Tenorshare Any Data Recovery for Mac on your device.
Step 3: Go to the main interface of the software and select the location to recovery.
Step 4: Click “Scan” and wait for a while, you will all deleted files displayed for preview.
Step 5: Select the files you accidently deleted and click on “Recover” to restore that lost file.
Using this app you will be able to single-handedly recover all of your lost files. Although this is a fairly new app, its efficiency and convenience have impressed a lot of people.
Empty Trash Mac
Conclusion
Force Empty Trash Mac Os
Ultimately, we can say that emptying the trashcan is very important on Mac. Basically, the file still stays on the device hogging more and more space, also if the file is very sensitive, then anyone can get access to that file and finally staying too long inside the trash it can get corrupted and may not get deleted even when you want to remove it. So, just follow the simple procedures mentioned in the article and empty before it is too late. And we highly recommend Any Data Recovery for all your lost or deleted data recovery needs.