Q: Trash won't delete

Try holding down the Option key when emptying the Trash.

Quit all the applications that are associated with the files you are trying to delete, then empty the Trash.

Mac troubleshooting: What to do when the Trash won’t empty

Relaunch the Finder.

Mac OS X: How to quit an unresponsive application using Force Quit

click on your desktop, now click on 'Finder->Secure Emptry Trash' from the top menu-bar.

This will usually take care of most of these type of problems.

I've got a similar issue. I've got two garbage-character files in the trash (zero k) that won't delete.

I've tried:

Empty Trash

Option-Empty-Trash

Finder-Secure Empty Trash

Terminal command rm -rf ~/.Trash/*

Rebooting (of course)

And still they stay.

Any tips?

My trash wouldn't empty either. I was trying to 'Empty Securely', I would respond to the prompts, it would begin the process showing the number of files to delete and in two or three seconds the Trash finder window would disappear off the desktop and the trash was still full; nothing deleted at all. I think it had to do with some of the files I had in there were locked documents. So I went in and restored and unlocked them and trashed them again and it worked. Another time it wouldn't delete(same sequence of events-responding to prompts and all) and it would disappear and the trash was there as nothing happened at all. I changed the preferences to just 'empty' instead of 'empty securely' and it worked. That instance, I had a TON of files in there. Close to 20 gigs. I think there may be a threshold of how much can be securely scrubbed from trash at some point. It works fine if I don't let my trash pile up too long. Hope this helps.

My trash wouldn't empty either. I was trying to 'Empty Securely', I would respond to the prompts, it would begin the process showing the number of files to delete and in two or three seconds the Trash finder window would disappear off the desktop and the trash was still full; nothing deleted at all. I think it had to do with some of the files I had in there were locked documents. So I went in and restored and unlocked them and trashed them again and it worked. Another time it wouldn't delete(same sequence of events-responding to prompts and all) and it would disappear and the trash was there as nothing happened at all. I changed the preferences to just 'empty' instead of 'empty securely' and it worked. That instance, I had a TON of files in there. Close to 20 gigs. I think there may be a threshold of how much can be securely scrubbed from trash at some point. It works fine if I don't let my trash pile up too long. Hope this helps.

Thanks. But this is only two files - just random trash-character named files at zero k

This is happening to me too and the only thing that seems to be working after trying all of the other suggestions...

Is removing all of the files from the trash, then putting them in the trash separately and deleting them one by one...

This is super time consuming but at least it's working so far... I'm not sure why they won't delete together... I've never had this problem before...

PS: It's also emptying etremely slowly compared to normal.