Emptying Trash

I cannot Empty the trash. The item is on a USB pen drive and when i plug it in it appears in the trash. I have messed around with the preferences. I have even downloaded a programme Super Empty Trash, but i realised it`s already in the trash. I am not technically minded,because somebody mentioned Terminal and thats out of my league, unless some one can give me clear instructions. I find this topic should not arise because Apple are just sitting there, and we are trying to find the answers. I think Apple should be responsible.
Biffo

Biffo said:

I find this topic should not arise because Apple are just sitting there, and we are trying to find the answers. I think Apple should be responsible.
Biffo

Click to expand...

And i find others blaming others for them being inept isnt right either Why is your lack of knoweledge of your Mac  fault ?? Curious is all.

I am a little confused as to what you are asking? You have a Thumb Drive and you want to empty its content into the trash or the Thumb Drive itself is in the trash
Does the thumb drive show up in the finder window?? or only in the trash? Have you tried selecting all that is in the Thumb Drive and use the secure empty trash command found in the file menu at the top.....

Try and give us as much info as possible

Cheers

Biffo said:

I cannot Empty the trash. The item is on a USB pen drive and when i plug it in it appears in the trash.

Click to expand...

You've tried emptying the Trash while the USB drive is mounted, correct?

If you are doing everything correctly and nothing at all else works then follow the steps below very very carefully...

This technique uses a Terminal command to fore the Trash to empty. It is important that you follow these steps very carefully.

1. Launch Terminal, located in the Macintosh HD > Applications > Utilities folder or search Spotlight for Terminal

2. At the Terminal prompt, type the following command exactly as written:

sudo rm -rf ~/.Trash/*


Hope this helps

- Simon

If you don't want to mess with terminal, try right clicking the trash icon, holding the option key, then click "empty trash".

This should empty everything that's in the trash, and this method has worked for me many times.

Sent this reply to a messagee on my board, posting here in case you don't get it.

Hi.
When you trash something from a USB Pen, you need to empty the trash with it still connected to the Mac.
So the proceedure is:

Plug in the pen, drag the unwanted item from the pen into the trash, go to the finder menu and click empty trash.
That should clear it, if you don't empty trash with it plugged in, you will still see it in the trash every time you plug the pen back in.
Sometimes I find I have to do the above, eject the pen, re-insert it, and empty trash again, but it's usually only when I use a low powered usb bus, like the one on the keyboard.
Maybe that's the issue.
If not, the only other thing I can think is that the file you are trashing is locked.
To check, drag it to the desktop, highlight it, and go to the finder menu and do "get info". This will show the files permissions, and if it's locked, unlock it and try again.
Come back to me if it's not gone though.
Kev.