I've read dozens of posts about this all over the web but no suggestion seems to help. I recently deleted an app, and for some reason after I then cleared the recycle bin, it left behind what is apparently a zero-length file. Now trying to empty the trash, it refuses saying there is a file in use in there. If you open the trash can, it has nothing in it. I've tried safe mode, tried recovery mode, nothing seems to have any effect. Is there a way to just nuke the trash bin and start over with a new one?
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Can't empty recycle bin
- Thread starter pizzaguy2
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I have not done that as I understood SIP protects the system from running unknown apps or unknown code, so it didn't feel like it would affect this problem. I read this as the system seems to think there's something in the deleted app that is in use somewhere but lsof shows no trace of that app name and when you open the trash bin it is empty... yet system thinks this app is "busy" somehow.
Did that, but in safe mode, empty trash still has message that cannot continue due to a file in use.
I don't know if this will help but I had a file / app in the trash and I couldn't empty it from the trash. When I sent the file to the trash, iCloud was still showing it where I put it on the computer. I had to delete the file in iCloud, then empty the trash bin, rebooted and the file was gone for good.
I "accidentally" fixed this due to having to recover my boot drive from a mirror copy. Once the recovery copy was done, the problem was gone, as of course the recovery process ignores the trash bin so I got a nice new one and that fixed the problem. Kind of a long way to go but whatever...
