one or more items can't be changed because they are in use

Question

I am trying to copy over 1TB of data from a internal hard drive (in a hard drive dock) to a new internal hard drive when I attempt to copy the data I get the message in the topic title.I was originally trying to do this transfer on Snow leopard and when this problem surfaced decided this was a good time to upgrade to lion and blow away the old system with all the rubbish and start a fresh but as you can tell I am still getting the same error even after formatting the hard drive before installing lion and not doing anything with the system except attempting to transfer the data.I have copied larger amounts of data than this previously so have no idea what is going wrong.

henin · Accepted Answer

I was having trouble copying some files, getting the "One or more items in... can&#x27;t be changed because they are in use" error.  The files were grayed out in the Finder.  Did a lot of Googling and found out about Extended file attributes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extended_file_attributes) and xattr (http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/Darwin/Reference/ManPages/ man1/xattr.1.html).  Upshot: If you ls a file in Terminal and the permissions list ends with "@", the file has extended attributes. If you ls the file again with the "-l@" flag, you will see the names and values of the extended attributes.  In my case, it was the com.apple.FinderInfo attribute that was causing the problem.  Deleted the attribute with "xattr -d com.apple.FinderInfo [filename]" on each file and everything was hunky dory.  NB: Extended attributes can also store resources or essential metadata, so don&#x27;t delete them willy nilly.  It&#x27;s always safe to delete com.apple.FinderInfo.Posting this to my top few hits so others won&#x27;t have to spend as much time on this as I have.

FlashGirl · Answer

Thanks henin,I had this here file, which was greyed out ...... and when I tried to copy it I got this crappy message even though I had just plugged in the harddisk and with only Finder running.I followed your instructions, though I found it was easier for me to skip the "cd" step, so what I did was:Launch Terminal, located in Applications/Utilties.Write "xattr -d com.apple.FinderInfo " - without the quotation mark, but remember the last space (just copy/paste the text).Drag and drop the offending file to the Terminal window and press Return.When you drag the file to the Terminal window it automatically writes the full path for you (hence no need for "cd"), and if your file has spaces in the name it puts the appropriate escape signs in, so you don&#x27;t have to do this yourself. Just repeat step 2 and 3 for any files.This was much quicker than having to write every name (I had more files with very long names), however, I probably wouldn&#x27;t like to do this for thousands of files, he he.Hope this helps someone. Cheers, FlashGirl 🙂

skillet · Answer

henin your answer looks to be a solution for me but after reading both articles I am at a loss as to what it is exactly I am suppose to do.There is a two gig movie file that is greyed out and plays in quicklook, but it does get stuck about 42 minutes in and stops playing video eventhough the time is still moving by in the counter.  QuickTime Pro 7 and QuickTime X won&#x27;t play it at all and give me the message "Item “149_8752.MOV” is used by Mac OS X and can’t be opened.".  I have logged in as root and get the same problem, I have restarted several times.  Changed permissions of the file and it stays greyed out.When I go to transfer it to another location I get the error "One or more items in “149_8752.MOV” can’t be changed because they are in use."  Then when I press continue it asks for my username and password "Finder Wants to make changes. Type your password to allow this.  It then goest through the transfer process and when it is finished transfering the new drive doesn&#x27;t have the file and when I get info on the drive has the exact same Used size as it was before (empty).Not sure what to do from your description but I have googled this and read many, many posts and nothing seems to work.

macnewcomer22 · Answer

It is a large amount of video files and I am trying to copy them to one of the 3 spare hard drives located inside the mac pro.

macnewcomer22 · Answer

I quit everything until finder was the only one still running and the error still appeared.

Linc Davis · Answer

Launch the Terminal application in any of the following ways:☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens. ☞ If you’re running Mac OS X 10.7 or later, open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Terminal in the page that opens.Drag or copy — do not type — the following line into the Terminal window, then press return:sudo lsof | grep &#x27;Hard Drive 2&#x27;You&#x27;ll be prompted for your login password, which won&#x27;t be displayed when you type it. You may get a one-time warning not to screw up. You don&#x27;t need to post the warning. If you don’t have a login password, you’ll need to set one before you can run the command.The command may take a noticeable amount of time to run. Wait for a new line ending in a dollar sign (“$”) to appear.Post any lines of output that appear below what you entered — the text, please, not a screenshot.If any personal information appears in the output, edit before posting, but don’t remove the context.

macnewcomer22 · Answer

sudo lsof | grep &#x27;Hard Drive 2&#x27;WARNING: Improper use of the sudo command could lead to data lossor the deletion of important system files. Please double-check yourtyping when using sudo. Type "man sudo" for more information.To proceed, enter your password, or type Ctrl-C to abort.Password:mds        86           root  txt       REG              14,11      3277   26491 /Volumes/Hard Drive 2/.Spotlight-V100/Store-V2/18378527-FF29-438C-BF56-DEC47473CCC6/live.0.indexGro upsmds        86           root  txt       REG              14,11         8   26627 /Volumes/Hard Drive 2/.Spotlight-V100/Store-V2/18378527-FF29-438C-BF56-DEC47473CCC6/live.0.indexCom pactDirectorymds        86           root  txt       REG              14,11      2056   26626 /Volumes/Hard Drive 2/.Spotlight-V100/Store-V2/18378527-FF29-438C-BF56-DEC47473CCC6/live.0.indexDir ectorymds        86           root  txt       REG              14,11      3277   26595 /Volumes/Hard Drive 2/.Spotlight-V100/Store-V2/18378527-FF29-438C-BF56-DEC47473CCC6/live.1.indexGro upsmds        86           root  txt       REG              14,11      1024   26601 /Volumes/Hard Drive 2/.Spotlight-V100/Store-V2/18378527-FF29-438C-BF56-DEC47473CCC6/live.1.indexCom pactDirectorymds        86           root  txt       REG              14,11      8224   26600 /Volumes/Hard Drive 2/.Spotlight-V100/Store-V2/18378527-FF29-438C-BF56-DEC47473CCC6/live.1.indexDir ectorymds        86           root  txt       REG              14,11     20356   26525 /Volumes/Hard Drive 2/.Spotlight-V100/Store-V2/18378527-FF29-438C-BF56-DEC47473CCC6/0.indexGroupsmds        86           root  txt       REG              14,11    203560   26524 /Volumes/Hard Drive 2/.Spotlight-V100/Store-V2/18378527-FF29-438C-BF56-DEC47473CCC6/0.indexIdsmds        86           root  txt       REG              14,11     58596   26530 /Volumes/Hard Drive 2/.Spotlight-V100/Store-V2/18378527-FF29-438C-BF56-DEC47473CCC6/0.indexDirector ymds        86           root  txt       REG              14,11    313772   26531 /Volumes/Hard Drive 2/.Spotlight-V100/Store-V2/18378527-FF29-438C-BF56-DEC47473CCC6/0.indexCompactD irectorymds        86           root  txt       REG              14,11   4764544   26532 /Volumes/Hard Drive 2/.Spotlight-V100/Store-V2/18378527-FF29-438C-BF56-DEC47473CCC6/0.indexArraysmds        86           root  txt       REG              14,11    262144   26534 /Volumes/Hard Drive 2/.Spotlight-V100/Store-V2/18378527-FF29-438C-BF56-DEC47473CCC6/0.directoryStor eFilemds        86           root  txt       REG              14,11     32768   26490 /Volumes/Hard Drive 2/.Spotlight-V100/Store-V2/18378527-FF29-438C-BF56-DEC47473CCC6/live.0.indexIdsmds        86           root  txt       REG              14,11     67392   26628 /Volumes/Hard Drive 2/.Spotlight-V100/Store-V2/18378527-FF29-438C-BF56-DEC47473CCC6/live.0.indexArr aysmds        86           root  txt       REG              14,11     65536   26629 /Volumes/Hard Drive 2/.Spotlight-V100/Store-V2/18378527-FF29-438C-BF56-DEC47473CCC6/live.0.director yStoreFilemds        86           root  txt       REG              14,11     32768   26594 /Volumes/Hard Drive 2/.Spotlight-V100/Store-V2/18378527-FF29-438C-BF56-DEC47473CCC6/live.1.indexIdsmds        86           root  txt       REG              14,11    262144   25881 /Volumes/Hard Drive 2/.Spotlight-V100/Store-V2/18378527-FF29-438C-BF56-DEC47473CCC6/reverseDirector yStoremds        86           root    8r      DIR              14,11       374       2 /Volumes/Hard Drive 2mds        86           root   16r      DIR              14,11       374       2 /Volumes/Hard Drive 2mds        86           root   22r      DIR              14,11      2210   25848 /Volumes/Hard Drive 2/.Spotlight-V100/Store-V2/18378527-FF29-438C-BF56-DEC47473CCC6mds        86           root   27r      DIR              14,11       374       2 /Volumes/Hard Drive 2mds        86           root   28r      DIR              14,11      2210   25848 /Volumes/Hard Drive 2/.Spotlight-V100/Store-V2/18378527-FF29-438C-BF56-DEC47473CCC6mds        86           root   35u      REG              14,11       140   26648 /Volumes/Hard Drive 2/.Spotlight-V100/Store-V2/18378527-FF29-438C-BF56-DEC47473CCC6/journalAttr.10mds        86           root   36u      REG              14,11        28   25854 /Volumes/Hard Drive 2/.Spotlight-V100/Store-V2/18378527-FF29-438C-BF56-DEC47473CCC6/indexStatemds        86           root   43u      REG              14,11   2297856   25880 /Volumes/Hard Drive 2/.Spotlight-V100/Store-V2/18378527-FF29-438C-BF56-DEC47473CCC6/.store.dbmds        86           root   44u      REG              14,11      4096   26593 /Volumes/Hard Drive 2/.Spotlight-V100/Store-V2/18378527-FF29-438C-BF56-DEC47473CCC6/live.1.indexHea dmds        86           root   45u      REG              14,11         0   25884 /Volumes/Hard Drive 2/.Spotlight-V100/Store-V2/18378527-FF29-438C-BF56-DEC47473CCC6/journalExclusio nFinder    163 UserAccountName   18r      DIR              14,11        68   26639 /Volumes/Hard Drive 2/.Trashes/501Finder    163 UserAccountName   30r      DIR              14,11       374       2 /Volumes/Hard Drive 2philips-mac-pro:~ UserAccountName$

macnewcomer22 · Answer

I had 4 2TB drives in my Mac pro and upgraded them to 4 4TB drives and copied data to 3 of the 4 drives successfully using a hard drive dock to plug the old 2TB internal drives into so I could transfer the data to the 4TB drives located in the Mac Pro.This is the precess I am going through when the error occurs the drive I am trying to bring the data from is located in the hard drive dock and the drive I am trying to move the data to is located in the mac pro.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v&#x3D;O7Wv3oZBTZo&amp;feature&#x3D;youtu.be

Linc Davis · Answer

You seem to be triggering an obscure bug in the Finder. I don&#x27;t know why. Create a folder named "Projects" on the destination, then copy the subfolders of the source folder to it one, or a few, at a time.

macnewcomer22 · Answer

Sorry it took me awhile to respond I copied several parts over at a time as you suggested and finally know which specific item is causing the trouble.When I need to move a video file from one location to another using the internet I split it into several archived pieces to prevent corruption of the file on it&#x27;s journey through the internet it is one of these pieces that seems to be causing the issue.

henin · Answer

Try this:1) Launch Terminal, located in Applications/Utilties.2) Using cd, change to the directory in which 149_8752.MOV is located. (E.g., If the file is on the desktop, type "cd ~/Desktop". If the file is in subfolder Foo of the Movies folder in your home directory, type "cd ~/Movies/Foo)3) Type "xattr -d com.apple.FinderInfo 149_8752.MOV".If this doesn&#x27;t work, then your problem is different from the one I was having.Hope this is helpful.  Cheers, henin

Hatrabbit · Answer

I am having this issue with a Time Machine backup I&#x27;m trying to copy to a Time Capsule.  As you can imagine, there are millions of files... can anyone give me an example of how I would script the xattr -d command to apply to all the files in the entire dirctory?Any help here will be greatly appreciated.

Hatrabbit · Answer

Thanks for the quick reply.  I was afraid that&#x27;s what I would have to do... I should have researched the TC more before buying it.  Not being able to migrate my existing backups in is a significant drawback.

tomachi · Answer

Well if you have a unique name for the disk (say "Installers" or something), open up Terminal and type this in:lsof | grep InstallersThis will show all the open files. On my system I get this:hotel:~ tom$ lsof | grep InstallersFinder     915  tom   12r     DIR                1,6       102  760504 /Volumes/4TB/4TB/Installers/_CCC Archives/2015-02-05 (February 05) 11-22-07/Mac/Internet/FileZilla.app/Contents/_CodeSignatureShows me the Finder has something open in some redundant backup of a deleted file from Carbon Copy Cloner (_CCC Archives). Trouble is it still gives me this after deleting the whole _CCC folder and emptying trash.... (OS 10.9)

Linc Davis · Answer

It means that you&#x27;re trying to overwrite a file that&#x27;s open. Without more information, that&#x27;s all I can tell you.