Empty Trash in terminal window?

[DanL]

Used to be easy to do this, with "rm -r /Users/myaccount/.Trash"

Now that I've moved beyond ElCap, that doesn't work anymore. You can do it with sudo rm -R, and then drag everything from the trash to the terminal window. But I want to do it ALL with ONE TERMINAL COMMAND and no dragging.

Options?

 

[Cory Cooper]

Hi,

I only had to force empty the Trash via Terminal once years ago. Sounds like something has changed due to SIP, APFS, and other new macOS security features being implemented?

I have been using two keyboard commands for moving files to the Trash, then emptying it:
Command-Delete to move selected file(s) to the Trash
Command-Shift-Delete to empty the Trash

Of course, that doesn't help if the Trash cannot be emptied and you have to force empty it. I know there are a few applications that manage the Trash, but I haven't used any of them. It looks like the process you listed is how it works in Terminal now. I did a quick search and didn't see a faster way.

C

 

[DanL]

That's slick, thank you your suggestion. I occasionally have to do this terminal empty-trash when the Mac says that a file in my trash is "busy" and it won't delete it with a simple Finder-Empty Trash. In all of these cases the file certainly isn't busy. I've killed the application that I was using to work on them. So this "file busy" business is a delusion of my Mac. I'll try this strategy next time I see something like that.

 

[TonyAguila]

I remember using Onyx to force-empty the Trash folder. I can’t get into it presently because Onyx is not supported in Monterey.

If you get on the developer’s web site, I think they still maintain copies for older versions of macOS.

 

[DanL]

The fact that lots of software can't keep up with new Mac operating systems is a MAJOR disincentive to upgrading for me. I'm at Big Sur now, on a new machine (somewhat reluctantly) and I've managed to get more or less experimental beta versions of those software packages that are most important to me.