.mobilebackups.trash not deleting automatically

I disabled local backups through terminal using the command that is floating around

There is a lot of bad advice floating around, and that's near the bottom of the heap.

Turn Time Machine OFF in its preference pane, then turn it back ON.

Back up all data.

If you have more than one user account, you must be logged in as an administrator to carry out these instructions.

Please triple-click anywhere in the line below on this page to select it:

sudo mv /.MobileBackups.trash /Trashme

Copy the selected text to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C.

Launch the built-in 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.

Paste into the Terminal window by pressing the key combination command-V. I've tested these instructions only with the Safari web browser. If you use another browser, you may have to press the return key after pasting. You'll be prompted for your login password. Nothing will be displayed when you type it. If you don’t have a login password, you’ll need to set one before you can run the command. You may get a one-time warning to be careful. Confirm. You don't need to post the warning.

If you see a message that your username "is not in the sudoers file," then you're not logged in as an administrator. Log in as one and start over.

Wait for a new line ending in a dollar sign ($) to appear below what you entered. You can then quit Terminal.

There will now be a folder called "Trashme" at the top level of the startup volume. Drag it to the Trash and empty. You may be prompted again for your password. If the Trash won't empty, reboot and try again.

I gave this a try as I have been experience the same issue. It somewhat worked for me. I had about 199 gb of "other" that was mostly my mobilebackups.trash folder. When emptying the trash, I'm prompted with "The operation can't be completed because a required item is in use". This happend for multiple files. I rebooted but am still getting the same prompt. Now it did free up about 40 gb of space but I'm still stuck with 153 gb of "other". Should I follow through with the steps again and see if that works? If not, what do a do with the trashme folder in the trash that cannot be emptied?

Try using the app Trashit to force empty the trash. That worked for me when Ihad this issue.

http://www.nonamescriptware.com

Hi Linc Davis,

I followed your steps but no Trashme file appeared. BUT.... I think the mobile backups are now in 'Other' not 'Backups'

Let me explain why....

I had noticed my 750Gb HD fill up very quick - didnt understand where all the content was? Info on HD says I have used 500Gb. When I looked into it via the About my Mac panel I noticed about 200Gb in 'Backups' and about 100Gb in 'Other'

I folowed you steps above and didnt see any Trashme file?

After restarting I noticed the About mu mac panel that the 'Backups' were completly gone but 'Other' is now 300Gb - as if the 200Gb and backups had moved into 'Other'

Very Odd, either way I think theres 200Gb of backups somewhere on my mac and I cant delete them - spent ALL day trying to sort this with no luck ;-(

See this screen shot - I did a Omnidisk sweep (using sudo) and it tells me my HD had 300Gb of files yet the finder tells me im using 500Gb?!?!

Where is that 200GB!!!!???

I used your method successfully to remove 200GB of stuck .mobilebackups.trash files in 10.9.5. However, new trash files don't seem to go away unless I repeat the procedure every few weeks. This works, but wonder if there's a more permanent solution. Thanks.

Thank you for your help here... I followed your advice and the backups were mostly deleted. The TrashMe folder is still in the trash and there are about 30 things that won't delete, so the folder is sitting in my trash. I rebooted and tried a bunch of other things to remove it. I can't put it back either. Here's the first error message that comes up when I try to empty the trash now: The operation can’t be completed because the item “CoreServices” is in use.

Help?

I also have not been able to empty the "trashme" folder from my trash. I unlocked the trashme folder and all the locked folders within, but still not luck. There are a slew of files that system will not allow me to delete starting with var. The message that I get is "The operation can’t be completed because the item “var” is in use."

I'm perplexed!

I used Trash iT! to empty Trash with the trashme folder in it. Works fine. Not sure I recall getting the "in use" messages though.

Hey Ralph:

I actually tried Trash it! several times (as well as Cocktail). Each time the (Trash it! or Cocktail) program completes t's cycle and thinks that it erased everything, but the Trashme file remains untouched. I have rebooted a bunch of times. I've turned off Time Machine back-up, but nothing works!!

Don't quite know what to do!

.......Bruce

The instructions that I posted in this discussion two years ago are not suitable for El Capitan. If you're running El Capitan, followed those instructions, and now can't empty the Trash, please take either Step 1 or Step 2 below (not both.)

Step 1

Restore from the backup you made before moving the folder to the Trash. If you backed up with Time Machine, follow these instructions.

Step 2

This procedure will temporarily disable System Integrity Protection, a security feature of OS X that is preventing the Trash from being emptied. After you empty the Trash, the feature will be re-enabled. Nothing else will be changed.

Start up in Recovery mode. In the OS X Utilities screen, select Get Help Online. A copy of Safari will launch. While in Recovery, you'll have no access to your history or bookmarks, but you won't need them. Load this web page.

Triple-click anywhere in the line below to select it:

csrutil disable

Copy the selected text to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C.

Quit Safari. You'll be returned to the OS X Utilities screen.

Select

Utilities ▹ Terminal

from the menu bar. A Terminal window will open. Paste into the window by pressing the key combination command-V.

Wait for a new line ending in a hash sign (#) to appear below what you entered. If it doesn't appear, press return.

Quit Terminal to return to the main screen.

Restart as usual. You should now be able to empty the Trash. As soon as you've done that, start up in Recovery mode again and load this page in Safari. Run the following command in Terminal as before:

csrutil enable

Restart as usual again.

was able to empty the trash but the "Others" sections has same size (as before deleting the /.mobilebackubs.trash) 😟 it's really hard to get your GB back i find

Hi,

I've been trying to delete the .mobilebackups.trash as its taking more than 100gb on my internal drive. Was able to go as far as moving it to trash but than i was unable to delete it form trash as i am running El Capitan, bummer, so i went ahead and disaple the SIP, delete trash (trash was emptied) and put SIP Back up,

Now the MobileBackups.trash Folder is even bigger in size...this is starting to be frustrating....

I am baking up on my external drive anyways...why does backup take so much space out of my internal drive??? and also when using OmniSweeper It shows me the Time Machine Partition as well as my drive when my external backup drive is not even connected...