Can't delete folders from trash which are from External Drives

I've got two external drives. One is a Western Digital Passport 2 TB HDD, and the other is a Samsung Portable SSD T5. So, the other day, I tried to move some files from the main storage to the externals. But then I decided just to delete the files. So, I cancelled the copying, & after finishing that 'Stopping', I deleted the files from the external drives. All is well until here. But when I tried to empty the trash, it just didn't. It says, "The operation can't be completed because the item "XYZ" is in use." So, I restarted my PC & tried again, but the same thing popped up again & again. When I click Get Info, it shows this path:

/HDD/.Trashes/Trash & /SSD/.Trashes/Trash


But there are no such folders on either of the drives. I checked the hidden files as well.


When the drives are not plugged in, the trash is showing empty, but as soon as I plug in the drives, it starts showing these files.


How can I delete these things? Seeing a pile of trash is bugging me 24/7.

MacBook Air 13″, macOS 14.4

Posted on Apr 22, 2024 02:00 AM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Apr 22, 2024 06:30 AM

Open Terminal.

Type sudo rm -rf into Terminal, leave a space, then drag and drop the file(s) from your Trash to the Terminal window and hit Enter


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Can't delete folders from trash which are from External Drives

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