How to fix trash with warning "Finder wants to make changes. Type your password to allow this".

Back up all data now.

This procedure will unlock all your user files (not system files) and reset their ownership and access-control lists to the default. If you've set special values for those attributes on any of your files, they will be reverted. In that case, either stop here, or be prepared to recreate the settings if necessary. If none of this is meaningful to you, you don't need to worry about it.

Step 1

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.

☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Terminal in the icon grid.

Drag or copy — do not type — the following line into the Terminal window, then press return:

sudo chflags -R nouchg,nouappnd ~ $TMPDIR.. ; sudo chown -R $UID:20 ~ $_ ; chmod -R -N ~ $_ 2> /dev/null

Be sure to select the whole line by triple-clicking anywhere in it. You'll be prompted for your login password, which won't be displayed when you type it. You may get a one-time warning not to screw up. You don'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 will take a noticeable amount of time to run. Wait for a new line ending in a dollar sign (“$”) to appear, then quit Terminal.

Step 2

Boot into Recovery by holding down the key combination command-R at startup. Release the keys when you see a gray screen with a spinning dial.

When the OS X Utilities screen appears, select Utilities ▹ Terminal from the menu bar. A text window opens.

In the Terminal window, type this:

resetpassword

That's one word with no spaces. Then press return. A Reset Password window opens. You’re not going to reset a password.

Select your boot volume ("Macintosh HD," unless you gave it a different name) if not already selected.

Select your username from the menu labeled Select the user account if not already selected.

Under Reset Home Directory Permissions and ACLs, click the Reset button.

Select  ▹ Restart from the menu bar.

Thank you Linc Davis! After trying everything I could find for the last 2 weeks, your explanation worked perfect.

Thank you Linc, as always your posts solve the problem.

Or. If you really don't really want to do anything with terminal console.

1. Backup you data to Hardrive which is FAT32 formatted

2. Delete the original data also with the directory ( we can talk for example MUSIC directory in your home folder )

3. Create the Music dir and copy the data back to it.

And the ownership will be correct.

It's little bit stupid method, but this also works 🙂 as FAT32 is just very easy filesystem which pretty much destroys all the information about rights.

The important fact is that you delete the original data and also Empty Trash.

Of course FAT32 has for example 4GB filesize limit...

Tomas

I called AppleCare, this afternoon, on this very issue.

My new 2013 iMac (Mountain Lion 10.8.3), just developed this "can't trash without asking for Admin Password" problem. Yesterday it was "trashing out" , no problem, now this afternoon .... anything I drop into the dock "trash can", gets a pop-up window asking for my Administrator Password.

AppleCare said the "terminal" method of fixing this problem was not the best way, or the easiest way to create a fix. After AppleCare took me through the steps (described in the Apple link below), everything was back to normal ... no asking for Admin Passwords to use my dock "trash can".

Basically, as explained to me, it is a "privledge" issue with files, and not a "permissions" issue.

Follow these instructions from Apple:

OS X: After "Apply to enclosed items…", unable to change prefs, remove or save files, iPhoto & iTunes issues, Preview & TextEdit quit

Worked for me !

sudo rm -rf ~/.Trash

many thanks :-)))

This solved my problem perfectly

Christian

This worked for me. Thanks.

In God's Harmony

Man, thanks a billion for this thread! I have an 8 year old Mac Pro and I was thinking that it was finally starting to completely die. I have been having lockup issues thanks to iTunes, but this was totally new after rebooting due to the last iTunes freeze-up.

A lot of what I find on Apple's discussion forums is not very helpful. This one was a Godsend!

Thanks again!

Dave

Thanks bunches. This worked perfectly for me. Wonder how much trash is being held by root.

Thanks so much Pohangina (and Douglas Broyles !)…I was close from reformatting my system…that was so easy and so efficient. I can still walk a few thousand miles with that "old" 10.7.5 system… ; ) May the Force and Fun be with you..always ! Grateful Lad

This worked for me too. Problem started 2 days ago because I accidentally logged myself out instead of just shutting down and I think the problem was caused because I had a backup drive still attached, when I logged myself back on.