Trash taking a huge amount of time to empty

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New to OS Yosemite, I have a IMac I7 27", just had a new SSD and 2TB HHD put in. It has taken 3 days to empty 6,300 items from the trash, still has 33,704 more to go. Is there a faster way to empty trash without using Terminal? Can I change back to regular Empty trash while Secure Empty trash is in porgress? Would it be faster? Do I need to cancel Emptying the trash in progress and start the whole process again?
 
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Just found the solution. Stopped the secure empty trash process, press option to regular empty trash and it deleted it immediately.
 

vansmith

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Stopped the secure empty trash process, press option to regular empty trash and it deleted it immediately.
The secure empty, as you've learned, take a long time primarily because it writes over the deleted file with random data and if you have a lot, it takes a lot of work to ensure that it works. Unless you absolutely need to do so, I'd avoid securely emptying the trash.
 
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2011 27" iMac, 1TB(partitioned) SSD, 20GB, OS X 10.11.6 El Capitan
I don't use Yosemite so I don't know if it has changed from earlier OS X versions, where there was an option to enable or disable it's default setting:
Finder -> Preferences -> Advanced -> "Empty Trash securely" option checkbox.

A complete waste of time and resources and excessive writes/rewrites wear and tear for the majority of users. ;)

And maybe add File Vault to that surplus list that Apple seems to be strongly suggesting to users to use with their latest OS's. :(
 

Slydude

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M1 MacMini 16 GB - Ventura, iPhone 14 Pro Max, 2015 iMac 16 GB Monterey
I don't use Yosemite so I don't know if it has changed from earlier OS X versions, where there was an option to enable or disable it's default setting:
Finder -> Preferences -> Advanced -> "Empty Trash securely" option checkbox.
(

I'm running the El Capitan beta and its still there as well.
 

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