Deleting Files from OS X Trash

Posted January 8th, 2009 by
Categories: straightguysca.com

I'm trying to delete a set of files from a Macintosh with OS X 10.2.6 and I'm getting a response in the terminal that says "HFS+ Private Data: Operation not permitted." The only web page I can find about this is in Japanese. Can anyone help me?

I wrote a script for recursively managing locks if anyone's interested: http://bleu.west.spy.net/~dustin/projects/applescript/LockScripts.xtp

barlow... fulldecent-ga makes a good point, which I *assumed* you would get from the thread that notes: "I was able to drag Fido out of the trash (into /Volumes/Thor/temp). This is an improvement. I can now empty the trash without getting errors." http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&safe=off&threadm=020920021310393347%25jjt%40NOSPAM.uiuc.edu&rnum=2&prev=/groups%3Fnum%3D50%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26ie%3DUTF-8%26oe%3DUTF-8%26safe%3Doff%26q%3D%2522HFS%252B%2BPrivate%2BData%253A%2BOperation%2Bnot%2Bpermitted.%2522%26sa%3DN%26tab%3Dwg It would be wiser to drag the unwanted files to a temp folder before attempting to delete them with the methods given. sublime1-ga

WARNING!!! Do not manually sudo rm -rf your trash can! That will delete the can itself and is poor form, the correct way to do this is: cd $TRASHCAN; sudo rm -rm * Where $TRASHCAN is the name of your trash.

barlow... I'm not a MAC user, however the problem you are having is discussed at length in threads at Google's archives of comp.sys.mac. One successful intervention was to use the terminal with the command: sudo rm -rf foldername ...where f specifies ignore premissions. The author of that suggestion also cautions: "Just FYI, rmdir only works with empty directories. For blowing away directories with contents, use rm recursively as you did above." "Just be careful, because one mistyping and you would become another in a long line of unix-using folk who deleted a whole lot more than intended." The complete thread is here: http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&safe=off&threadm=argqq5%24lgh%241%40bob.news.rcn.net&rnum=3&prev=/groups%3Fnum%3D50%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26ie%3DUTF-8%26oe%3DUTF-8%26safe%3Doff%26q%3D%2522HFS%252B%2BPrivate%2BData%253A%2BOperation%2Bnot%2Bpermitted.%2522%26sa%3DN%26tab%3Dwg Another solution, which worked for two users, was to boot into OS9: "Yes, it was locked. However, I was unable to unlock it using SetFile. Apparently, the unprintable characters at the front of the file name would cause anything I did to fail because of "file not found." I tried wild-cards, and other tricks and nothing worked except that the folder became visible. So, I booted into OS9 and deleted it from there... Thanks for the tip! Jim" The complete thread is here: http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&safe=off&threadm=271020021723554012%25jpbankston%40nospam.mac.com&rnum=1&prev=/groups%3Fq%3D%2522HFS%252B%2BPrivate%2BData:%2BOperation%2Bnot%2Bpermitted.%2522%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26ie%3DUTF-8%26oe%3DUTF-8%26safe%3Doff%26selm%3D271020021723554012%2525jpbankston%2540nospam.mac.com%26rnum%3D1 and: "OK, then, here's the ultimate (and funny) solution: Reboot into OS9. Find the file, put it in the trash, and empty the trash. OS9 don't need no steenking permissions :-) Seriously, if you boot into 9 and the file(s) is/are invisible, use File Buddy 7 to scan for invisibles and then you can delete them from there." The complete thread is here: http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&safe=off&threadm=020920021310393347%25jjt%40NOSPAM.uiuc.edu&rnum=2&prev=/groups%3Fnum%3D50%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26ie%3DUTF-8%26oe%3DUTF-8%26safe%3Doff%26q%3D%2522HFS%252B%2BPrivate%2BData%253A%2BOperation%2Bnot%2Bpermitted.%2522%26sa%3DN%26tab%3Dwg Please do not rate this answer until you are satisfied that the answer cannot be improved upon by means of a dialog established through the "Request for Clarification" process. sublime1-ga Searches done, via Google Groups: "HFS+ Private Data: Operation not permitted." http://groups.google.com/groups?q=%22HFS%2B+Private+Data%3A+Operation+not+permitted.%22

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Deleting Files from OS X Trash