Restart your Mac, then empty the Trash. If that doesn't work, you might have a startup item or login item that is using the file. To temporarily prevent such items from opening automatically, start up in safe mode by holding down the Shift key while your Mac starts up. Then empty the Trash and restart your Mac normally. Q: I have an old plastic trash can that has served me well, but is well past its prime. I know this sounds like a silly question, but I keep trying to throw it So how do I throw my pesky old garbage can away? And as a followup, I'm wondering if you and Apartment Therapy readers have any great suggestions.
How to empty the trash on your Mac • Click and hold on the Trashcan icon in the Dock. • A popup will appear that says Empty Trash. (You can also empty the Trash from any open Finder window by holding down the command and shift keys and pressing delete.) How to securely empty the trash on your Mac Emptying the trash is usually sufficient to get rid of the files you don't want anymore. But emptying the trash doesn't really destroy the files: They remain on the hard drive, marked for being overwritten the next time your Mac needs the space. As a result, some deleted files can be recovered using disk recovery software. Sometimes you may delete files that are particularly sensitive: Financial records, for example, intimate photos, or other data you absolutely don't want anyone to get their hands on, under any circumstances. Apple has considered this and has provided a Secure Empty Trash option as well.
Secure Empty Trash overwrites the deleted files with what Apple calls 'meaningless data.' Secure Empty Trash takes longer, but provides, as the name implies, a more secure form of file deletion. Use at your own discretion. • Click and hold on the Trashcan icon in the Dock. • Hold down the command key and click on the Trash. Empty Trash will change to Secure Empty Trash. • To do it from any open Finder window, click on the Finder menu and select Secure Empty Trash.
My review for the basic Photo Editor by Movavi, that is particularly good at removing unwanted objects from photos. Price: £15.67 (with VAT) Version. Mac cosmetics review.
Bonus Tip: Make Secure Empty Trash the default behavior Use this tip if you'd like to make sure that your Mac securely deletes files every time you empty the Trash. • Open the Finder. • Click on the Finder menu. • Select Preferences. • Check Empty Trash Securely.
This content has been, and is no longer maintained by Indiana University. Resources linked from this page may no longer be available or reliable. If you cannot delete an item in Mac OS X, try the following: • Check to see if the file (or a file within the folder) is being used by an application.
Quit all open applications, and then try to empty the Trash. • If the item is a file, click the file once. From the File menu, select Get Info. If the file is locked, unlock it and empty the Trash. Note that you won't be able to delete a folder if even one file in it is locked. • If the item is a folder, try throwing away each of the files within it.
Remove files that give you errors, and then try trashing the folder again. • You can force the Trash to empty even locked files by dragging them to the Trash, then holding down Option, and then, from the Finder menu, selecting Empty Trash.