Can’t Empty Trash In Ubuntu 8.04 and 8.10

By Randy Jensen | Aug 16, 2008

ubuntuTrash Cant Empty Trash In Ubuntu 8.04 and 8.10Seems simple enough right? Sometimes items seem to get ’stuck’ in the trash. Even though this seems like a bug, it’s actually due to the way permissions are handled on Linux (although I definitely wouldn’t call it a feature:). Here’s how to force it to empty.

Run this command from the terminal:

sudo rm -fr /home/USERNAME/.local/share/Trash/

**UPDATE**
Now that I’m running 8.10, I figured I’d check to see if the location of the Trash bin is in the same spot, and it is. The above command should work exactly the same in 8.10 as in 8.04.
****

That’s it. Your trash should now be empty.

Remember, they moved the location of the trash in the newest version of Ubuntu so obviously this exact command won’t work if you have an older version. All you need to do is a little research to find the correct directory and swap that out however.


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  • junior
    thanks dude... saved me
  • Bruce Hobson
    Thanks this worked for me.

    12/13/08
  • Chrisco
    Wow, worked the first time. I spent 2 hours looking for the right command. You would be surprised how many people out there claim to know what they are doing. Thanks
  • jobattle
    How can I safely format a USB thumb drive for ext3. I understand that I need to use makefs to do this but I don't know how to tell for sure what the mount point for the thumbdrive is so I can be absolutely sure I won't format my linux os.
  • Hey jobattle
    Here's what I would do (fyi, I'm using a vanilla install of Ubuntu so I'll be doing this on a Debian based Linux with GNOME)

    1. run 'sudo fdisk -l' to see the partitions on your computer (you should see something like dev/sda1)
    2. install gparted (http://gparted.sourceforge.net/)
    3. look for your thumb drive in the top right drop down box and choose it
    4. click on the bar graph showing the usage of the drive and hit the delete key
    5. then right click and choose 'Format to...' and choose ext3

    This is the easiest way I know of, hope it works for you! If not, please let me know and I'll see what I can do.
  • jobattle
    Randy

    You're right, that worked fine The part I was having trouble with was
    using the -l option on fdisk to see what the name of the thing was. I
    was afraid I would accidentally make a new fs on my main hard drive :-(

    I tried it with the thumb drive in and out and, sure enough, it was
    /dev/sdc1

    Thanks

    John Battle
    NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory
    Pasadena, CA
  • Hey John,

    Glad you got it! I'm also very honored to have been able to help someone at NASA :-)
  • JT
    Maybe it is like this because they want to be more green and force you to recycle! Think about it!
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