How do you empty wastebasket on a mac

If you dragged hundreds of thousands of items to the Trash it will take a long time to delete them. If you dragged Time Machine backup files to the Trash, then erase the backup drive. They will never be deleted.

Do not mess with Time Machine. Let it work the way it's designed to work. Which means turn it on and henceforth ignore it. To turn it on, focus on Finder by clicking it in the Dock. Close Finder Preferences. Thirty days after you move an item to the Trash, it will be permanently emptied from Trash and deleted.

Be careful out there, and good luck! Browse All iPhone Articles Browse All Mac Articles Do I need one? Browse All Android Articles Browse All Smart Home Articles Customize the Taskbar in Windows Browse All Microsoft Office Articles What Is svchost. Browse All Privacy and Security Articles Browse All Linux Articles Browse All Buying Guides.

Best iPhone 13 Pro Case. Best Bluetooth Headphones for Switch. Best Roku TV. 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. However, if are seeing a list, you'll have to close all the programs.

But bear in mind that Terminal might not give the full names of apps. So you might have to try closing several apps. If this is your first taste of the Terminal, have a look at our Terminal beginner's guide for more tips. In another case, the files you're trying to delete may be locked. You can easily correct this by going to the Trash and unlocking them. Here's what you need to do:.

This will unlock the file and let you delete it. You can also ensure that you completely erased all your previously deleted files by overwriting the free space on your hard drive with Disk Utility. If the trash contains a large number of files, it could take a long time to securely empty your trash. Select the "3-pass" option to securely delete your data and then click "Erase Free Space" again.

Erase free space more quickly by using the Fastest option and choose the Most Secure option to provide the least chance of recovery.