Can't empty trash, not even with usual tricks

TidBITS Talk
28

I had a similar problem with my Trash and this fix worked like a charm. Thanks.

29

Hey, thanks a lot! For over a year I’ve had stuff in the Trash that just would not delete, despite all sorts of methods and suggestions from numerous folks. This worked! And, I did restore SIP mode.

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30

I’ve tried every trick in this thread. None are working other than moving the Relocated folder to the desktop. I was unable to find “delete immediately” as an option using either option or option+shift.

as far as i know sip is disabled.
single user does not work; terminal cannot see /Users/
safe boot does not work.

Anyone have other ideas. Right now it’s sitting on my desktop.

31

You say is SIP is disabled as far as you know. Boot into the recovery console, pull down Utilities, go to Terminal and enter:

csrutil disable [return]

then restart.

32

Perfect, that was the secret sauce.

  1. shutdown wait 10 seconds

  2. boot to recovery. use terminal csrutil disable to disable sip.

  3. restart

  4. moved the directory to the desktop

  5. use terminal to sudo rm -rfR

  6. wait 10 seconds

  7. boot to recovery. use terminal csrutil enable to resume sip

  8. restart

what a pain.

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