- Secure empty trash mac sierra os how to#
- Secure empty trash mac sierra os for mac#
- Secure empty trash mac sierra os series#
My trash on my desktop might be empty, but when I plug in the external, it suddenly fills up with all the files in the external HDs trash. I have 250 files in the trash folder on my external firewire drive, but I can't get rid of them because they are all locked. Or, empty the trash by pressing three keys consecutively: Command + Shift + Delete. In order to empty trash on Mac, check the Trash bin option. Click on the Trash icon in the Dock and choose Empty Trash. Step 3After the scanning process, you can see all junk files are listed, including Trash bin. So, this is how you empty trash Mac using the terminal. You can use this method when all the above methods have failed to delete the files. This is a very typical method so that it must be used as an ultimate solution. Empty Trash on Mac with Terminal If you are proficient in using the Terminal, you will be able to delete the files by using it. I then selected 'secure empty trash' to clear Trash, This has been running for a day and a night already, and still has a while to go. The OS X trash is a relatively simple concept: you put something in it as a temporary location before you throw it out, and when you do throw it out, it is-for the most part-permanently removed. As I was running out of space on my Macbook, and experiencing a severe slow-down in activity, I decided to do a major trashing of unwanted files. So be careful with the command and do exactly what is given below: sudo rm -rf. As this process will delete all the locked files without any alert message. Use this method only when all the above-mentioned fixes fail. Sudo rm -rf ~/.After completion of the repair process restart your Mac and empty the Trash Method 5: Empty Trash Bin on Mac Using Terminal. Hit Command+Space bar to open Spotlight, type Terminal and hit the return key to. Locate the file (s) you wish to securely delete in the OS X Finder.
Secure empty trash mac sierra os how to#
If you get an error message, you will need to use the sudo command, which will prompt you for your administrator password: How to Perform Equivalent of Secure Empty Trash in OS X El Capitan (10.11.+) This requires usage of the Mac command line and a very powerful secure remove command, this is irreversible. If you aren’t afraid of controlling your Mac using Terminal commands, it is possible to empty the trash using the following command:Įmptying the trash with Terminal seems faster than using macOS’s graphical user interface. Then you can empty the trash and restart your computer normally. You can temporarily prevent such processes from opening it automatically by rebooting your Mac in safe mode by holding down the Shift key during startup. If that doesn't solve the issue, you might have a startup or login item using the file. In this case it is recommended to restart your Mac and then empty the trash. If that doesn’t work, there might be one or more background processes using the file. If you have upgraded your Mac to OS X El Capitan or newer (Sierra, High Sierra, Mojave, etc), you may have noticed the Secure Empty Trash option is missing.
Secure empty trash mac sierra os series#
To address that, start by quitting all the apps that are using the file you want to erase, and only then hit “Empty Trash”. When you empty trash securely, the system writes a series of ones and zeroes over the file youve deleted, making it impossible to recover. This happens because a file could still be in use or locked. We have all encountered the situation where emptying the trash simply doesn’t work or gets stuck.
Secure empty trash mac sierra os for mac#
Remember, this will only appear for Mac users running macOS 10.10 or earlier, since Apple removed this feature starting with macOS 10.11 El Capitan. To check if this option is active, go to Finder > Preferences > Advanced and untick “Empty Trash Securely”. It’s worth noting that this is something most users won’t need unless it is highly sensitive information.
While it is secure and specially designed for hard disk technology, it is a much slower process compared to a regular file removal. This is a built-in macOS feature that overwrites the data that was stored so the files cannot be recovered once deleted. The first thing you might want to check if the trash is slow to empty is whether the “Secure Empty Trash” feature is active.
While this process should be seamless, there are situations where clearing the trash becomes very slow or even becomes stuck, and in some cases macOS will display an error message to explain the reason. IMPORTANT: This may take a long time, from minutes to hours, depending on how much stuff you have in the Trash. Note that you could do this manually as well without selecting (1) above. Just like with a regular trash can, you need to ‘empty’ it for the contents to get removed, so right-click on the Trash icon and select “Empty Trash”. Here's how I solved it: (1) In Finder Preferences, select 'Empty Trash Securely'. Dragging files onto the Trash icon in the Dock doesn’t remove deleted files from the system.