Where is empty trash on mac

Your email address will not be published. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. All other trademarks acknowledged. How to Empty Trash on Mac? Restart Mac on Safe Mode The file that you are trying to delete might be in use by another application, making it difficult for you to empty Trash. Reboot the Mac in Safe Mode and clear Trash as shown below Reboot your Mac, press and hold the Shift key , as you do so you will find Apple logo appear on the screen.

Once the login screen appears release the shift key and login to the computer. After booting into the Safe Mode, open Trash and then click on Empty.

Empty the Stubborn Trash This is another method to empty the trash. Repair the disk before emptying the Trash If you are unable to empty Trash on Mac, there can be possibility of corruption on the disk that might be preventing the deletion. Select the disk from which the files need to be deleted and then click on First Aid to start the repair process.

After completion of the repair process restart your Mac and empty the Trash. Hold the Option key or Option-Shift and double-click the Trash icon.

Click Empty Bin. Confirm when the pop-up window appears. Hope that did help to empty the Trash. Open Terminal on your Mac. Control-click Trash from the Doc. This will create the path to each file to remove the command which you entered earlier. Now press Enter. Enter your Admin password to continue the process.

The password you enter will not be visible. It appears as if nothing has changed. Now press Enter again. John Harris. Dr Neeta Chhabra says:. November 15, at pm. May 15, at pm. Leave a Reply Cancel reply Your email address will not be published. We'll also review how to perform disk repairs in cases where a disk problem is stopping you from emptying the Trash. Also, we'll look at how to use the Terminal to force the Trash to empty.

Ideally, when you close an app or a file, it's supposed to release the CPU memory that it's occupying for running itself. But on rare occasions when this doesn't happen and the program keeps hold of the memory space on your computer, it can lead to various problems. To make sure that this isn't the case here, a quick restart is worth a shot before we get into more complex solutions. So, reboot your Mac and then give another go at emptying the Trash. If it doesn't work, jump to the next section.

Often, your Mac's Trash folder won't empty because certain files inside are still in use. Another app, or some kind of background operational process, might be using them. Either way, you'll know this is the case because a popup will tell you something like: The operation can't be completed because the item is in use.

This means you'll have to close the file before you can delete it permanently. For example, if the item is a Word document, you'll have to close it in Word. If it's an application, you'll have to quit out of that app.

And so on. Occasionally, you might not be able to identify exactly where the file is open. In these cases, perhaps a background process is using it. Now close any additional programs that you think might be stopping you from clearing the Trash on your Mac. Alternatively, a startup or login item might be using the file in question. You can get around this by starting up your Mac in Safe Mode.

This stops some software from booting up automatically. This will delete the file if a startup app was using it. If not, another option is to use Terminal to check which app has the file locked. Here's how you do that:.

This will bring up a list of the apps using the file. In our case, it doesn't do this as the file is not in use by any program. CleanMyMac X can also remove piles of digital junk that can stay hidden for months, if not years. So give it a try. This app also has a Shredder tool, which is completely free, by the way. You can use it to completely erase any file or folder on your Mac. Just drag and drop any folder onto the Shredder pane, and it's gone for good.

Used to dragging files to Trash? Wait, this is not the only option. It won't go to Trash, so you won't be able to restore it later. Try if the Trash empties this time. Now you are fully equipped with knowledge about Trash on Mac. Hope this article was helpful. How To. Hit Return or Enter to search. Mac's Trash won't empty? Here's how to fix it. Ivan Kuziv. Did you know:. Did you enjoy this post? Subscribe Now.