Files Deleting from Bin taking too long

Hi Chasbar53

Unfortunately you have fallen into the trap of saving Time Machine backups to the same drive that you are using for additional external file storage.

When you try to delete the unwanted files in your external drive they are moved to a recycle bin on the drive itself and an "alias" for that file is moved to the local bin on your Mac, this is because the internal drive of your Mac will not have sufficient space to store that amount of data.

It is also the case that if the file(s) you are trying to delete on the external drive are bigger than the available space on the external drive then the Mac must try to compress those files first and this is what is taking so long, even if you wait for weeks it may never complete, the drive simply runs out of space.

To delete files immediately without moving them to the hard-drive recycle bin, or the Mac bin, highlight the files you want to delete then press the key combination:

⌘ Command + ⌥ Option + ⌫ Delete

Then acknowledge the warning screen "Are you sure you want to delete....." by clicking the "delete" button with the mouse.

The files are then immediately deleted and bypass all the usual recycle bin recovery method stuff first.

Going forward, use separate drives for Time Machine and user file backups, never use the same drive for both.

HTH

Will.

Hi Charles.

Leave it alone for another 48 hrs to see if the "Emptying Bin" manages to complete, remember that this is all happening on the external drive, the "Bin" referred to is not the Bin on your Mac but a temporary bin on the external hard drive.

Stopping a delete process on an external hard drive always risks the disk file index being damaged and then you won't be able to access any files on the drive.

After 48 hrs if no further progress then try to transfer the files you need to save to another external disk, try to avoid transferring to the internal Mac disk if at all possible as this may cause the Mac to crash if it has a stuck delete process in the process stack.

If, after 48 hrs the Mac is still non-responsive, the emptying bin process has not completed and you are unable to transfer the files off that disk then you have no other option but to force the delete task to quit by initiating a restart, but please note this may result in the external disk being unreadable after the Mac is rebooted.

When a restart command is issued it may still take a long time for the Empty Bin process to halt and release the Mac to obey the restart command, don't be surprised if it takes up to an hour after ordering the Mac to restart and the Mac actually does restart and during that time the cursor will show the spinning beach-ball icon.

If the Mac has not restarted after an hour then hold the power button in until the Mac is forced to close.

Before restarting disconnect the external disk.

After a forced power-down it is best practice to boot into Safe Mode first, then after the long boot-up that Safe Mode requires reboot again into Normal Mode.

Here is a list of key combinations that include the Safe Mode start-up:

https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT210898

Once the Mac is running in Normal mode you can reconnect the external disk and hopefully your files will still be accessible.

If there are any issues accessing those files on the external disk after the forced shutdown then use Disk Utilities and run First Aid on that external disk.

Always run First Aid in the sequence Volumes first, then Containers and finally Disks, running First Aid in the opposite direction is less likely to successfully fix all errors present.

See this document for guidance on Disk Utilities and running First Aid:

https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT210898

After successfully transferring the files elsewhere that you want to keep then you could reformat the drive to ensure the file indexes are cleared properly and fee space recovered.

Finally, if the drive has been used continually for Time Machine backups and is > five years old then the drive is nearing its expected end of life anyway and should probably be replaced to ensure reliability for the future.

HTH

Will.

Will is spot on.

The trash may never completely empty and the only way to fix the problem is to move the other data to a different drive, then erase and reformat the drive.

This is the number one reason, why it is a bad idea to use a single external drive for both Time Machine and other file storage.

Hi Charles.

No, unfortunately once you begin the conventional method of deleting files on an external drive by dragging to the bin on the mac, or using the file context menu to move to the bin, then it can’t be stopped.

You will have to wait for the process to either complete or an error message from the mac that it wasn’t able to carry out the deletion because of insufficient disk space.

If you try to Force Quit, or use Terminal to “Kill All” and halt the process, there is a real risk that the external drive’s directory may be corrupted and then all your data on that drive may become unreadable.

Even simply telling the Mac to shutdown while the deletion is underway may fail to stop the deletion process cleanly and leave the external disk unreadable, or readable but with the recovered space from the files deleted so far not marked as free.

It’s not worth the risk if you have valuable data on that drive.

Will.