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Like the title says -- I can't empty the trash on my OSX (10.6.4). I get "The operation can't be completed because an unexpected error occurred (error code -8003)" alert with stop & continue buttons, but continue seems to also stop.

I've rebooted.

I've run Disk first aid.

Any hints?

Thanks!

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my hint: superuser.com – vikingosegundo Nov 13 '10 at 15:47
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1 Answer

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You could try opening the OSX terminal and using sudo rm -ri ~/.Trash/* this will prompt you to delete each file individually. It will also prompt you for your login password.

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Any reason to use the -i? Why not rm -rf? Just askin'... – Olie Nov 13 '10 at 15:53
Oh just to be safe in case there's something there you want to keep. I like to be careful with sudo and rm -rf. I know people who have accidently typed sudo -rm -rf / and bad things happened. – GWW Nov 13 '10 at 15:54
@Olie: SAFETY FIRST! The -i will prompt you to to confirm every deletion. This is just a darn good habit to get into. – Cody Gray Nov 13 '10 at 15:55
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Oh, I'm with you guys on safety -- but I was about to empty-trash-all from the GUI without looking at what was in there, so it's not MUCH different. Yeah, GWW's typo would be Very Bad, but I don't think "in case you want to keep" is a real concern. There were 1000s of files, so I compromised and did yes | rm -ri... so I could at least see the filename list. Thanks! – Olie Nov 13 '10 at 15:58
Also, while this worked, I'd be interested if anyone can relate what "error code -8003" was trying to communicate. – Olie Nov 13 '10 at 16:02
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