I Can´t Empty the trash can

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Level 1

5 points

I Can´t Empty the trash can

I have sent to the trash on my Mac a file of about 2 TB that contains the backups of my previous Mac. It takes forever to empty it. (there are millions of files). I have tried to use the command rm -rf ~/. Trash/*

But he warns me that if I want to empty the trash can [yn] and if I tell him and he tells me that he does not understand the command and puts an n and does not execute anything. I have tried adding sudo and entering the password and the behavior is exactly the same. Can someone tell me what's going on?

Mac mini (M4 Pro, 2024)

Posted on Nov 19, 2025 1:04 AM

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Answer 1

Owl-53

Level 10

102,475 points

Nov 19, 2025 1:18 AM in response to JAPPM

JAPPM wrote:

I have sent to the trash on my Mac a file of about 2 TB that contains the backups of my previous Mac.

It takes forever to empty it. (there are millions of files). I have tried to use the command rm -rf ~/. Trash/*

But he warns me that if I want to empty the trash can [yn] and if I tell him and he tells me that he does not understand the command and puts an n and does not execute anything. I have tried adding sudo and entering the password and the behavior is exactly the same. Can someone tell me what's going on?

Time Machine Backup Utility will have marked the backup drive as Read Only

In order to delete the backups from your " my previous Mac. "

It better to re-format the physical drive - full stop

Then, repurpose the drive

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