MacOS – On Mountain Lion, Trash doesn’t Empty

1. The file could simply still be open by something. Use lsof <file> to see which process is hogging it, if any.
2. Otherwise sudo rm -rf /.Trashes/501/Users/myusername/Desktop should get rid of it
3. If that didn't work, try removing all the flags it's complaining about first: chflags nohidden,nosappdn,noarch,noschg <file>

I had a bit of time and the occasional need for something like this, so I thought I'd try writing up a quick AppleScript to do this.

The following AppleScript should do what you need. Paste it into a new AppleScript Editor document and save it as an application, then you can drag a volume onto it to delete only its files from the Trash.

If you drag your startup disk to it, it will delete files from the current user's Trash in their home folder.

If you drop multiple volumes on the script, it will empty all of their trashes.

The script only looks at the current user's trashes on volumes. On non-startup volumes (partitions & external drives), the user's trash is in /Volumes/volumeName/.Trashes/userID/; on the startup volume, it looks in ~/.Trash/.

It will ignore anything dropped onto it that is not a volume.

There are a few properties you can change to alter how it behaves.

Prompt for Secure Delete - If you want the script to ask you each time whether to delete securely, set the askForSecureEmpty property to true (at the top of the script).

Default Delete Command (rm or srm) - If you don't want the script to ask you each time, set askForSecureEmpty to false, then set rmDefault to either rm for normal or srm for secure.

Disable Trivial Dialogs - The script will show a dialog if it didn't find any Trash files to empty, e.g. if there were no files in that volume's Trash. To disable these, change the property, showDialogs to false. If there is an actual error while trying to delete files from a volume's Trash, you will still get an error message.

Disclaimer

The rm command can be very destructive. I wrote this script fairly quickly and only tested it on my own Mac, so please use it with caution and at your own risk. That said, it really shouldn't do anything to any files that are not already in a Trash folder somewhere.

One scenario I have not tested that could cause a problem is if you have two or more volumes with the same name.

Any ideas to clean up or improve the script are welcome.

-- Script to empty selected volumes' trashes --

property askForSecureEmpty : false -- change to true if you want to choose each time script is used
property rmDefault : "rm" -- command to use when askForSecureEmpty is "false"; use "rm" for regular, "srm" for secure
property showDialogs : true

on run
    set theVolumes to {choose folder}
    emptyTrash(theVolumes)
end run

on open theVolumes
    emptyTrash(theVolumes)
end open

on emptyTrash(theVolumes)
    if askForSecureEmpty then
        set useSecure to display dialog "Use Secure Empty Trash?" buttons {"Cancel", "No", "Secure"} default button "Secure"
        if useSecure is "Secure" then
            set rmCommand to "srm"
        else
            set rmCommand to "rm"
        end if
    else
        set rmCommand to rmDefault
    end if

    -- Get the user ID to empty only the current user's Trash --
    set userID to user ID of (system info)

    -- Set up a counter to later determine if any volumes were dropped on the script --
    set volumeCount to 0

    -- Cycle through each item dropped on the script to empty its Trash --
    repeat with theVolume in theVolumes
        if kind of (info for theVolume) is "Volume" then --ignore anything that's not a volume
            set volumeCount to volumeCount + 1
            set volumeName to name of (info for theVolume)

            -- Check if we're working on the startup disk, if so use user's home Trash --
            tell application "System Events" to set startupVolume to name of startup disk
            if volumeName = startupVolume then
                set trashPath to "~/.Trash/"
            else
                set trashPath to quoted form of (POSIX path of theVolume & ".Trashes/" & userID & "/")
            end if

            -- Try emptying the trash --
            try
                do shell script "cd " & trashPath --make sure the expected Trash folder exists
                if (count (paragraphs of (do shell script "ls -l " & trashPath))) > 0 then
                    try
                        do shell script "cd " & trashPath & "; " & rmCommand & " -R ./*" --try to empty the trash
                    on error
                        display alert "Error on volume " & volumeName as warning message "There was an error trying to delete the files." buttons {"Cancel", "OK"} default button "OK"
                    end try
                else
                    if showDialogs then display dialog "The Trash for volume '" & volumeName & "' appears to be empty." buttons {"OK"} default button "OK"
                end if
            on error
                if showDialogs then display dialog "No Trash folder on '" & volumeName & "' for this user." buttons {"OK"} default button "OK"
            end try
        end if
    end repeat

    -- Report an error if no volumes were found --
    if volumeCount = 0 and showDialogs then display dialog "No volumes found."
end emptyTrash