Too Many Files on Desktop, Won't Delet

Question

Too Many Files on Desktop, Won't Delet

Hey, so I was using adobe premiere and while exporting I made a seriously stupid mistake and had the movie export as a JPEG file on My desktop. Now my deaktop is covered with JPEGs and I can't delete them. I am able to use apps such as imessage and chrome, but I can't access any of my files since I store them all on my desktop. On top of that this is a school computer (we take them home over break and I am on Spring break right now) and these files are all extremely important for finals. Whenever I try to delete any of the files the loading icon pops up and runs for a few minutes then stops, with nothing at all having happened. I have tried opening finder and deleting them, but after it opens I can't scroll, search, or click on anything. This being a school computer, I don't have the administrator password.

So in conclusion, really all I need is someone to tell me how to delete some of the files (but not all) on my desktop while it's basically frozen, without an Administrator password.

(I don't actually know what the operatig system is but I got the computer the begining of this year and it came with the newest software)

MacBook Air, Mac OS X (10.7.5)

Posted on Mar 25, 2016 7:26 AM

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Answer 1

WZZZ

Level 6

13,238 points

Mar 27, 2016 10:13 AM in response to lucyfromwynnewood

To do this, open Terminal.app in /Applications/Utilities. Each command is entered separately and each command is followed by hitting Return. For each command entered, do not enter the next one until you see the $ sign prompt, which will indicate that it has finished. Depending on how many jpegs there are, deleting or moving may take quite a bit of time. You will know that it has completed when you get the new $ sign prompt. This will only affect items with the ,jpg suffix.

IMPORTANT: The following will cause irretrievable data loss; all files on the Desktop that end in .jpg will be deleted. If you mistype it, God only knows what will be deleted.

cd ~/Desktop
rm *.jpg

Or you could move them to a folder ("photos") that isn't the desktop:

cd ~/Desktop
mkdir photos
mv *.jpg photos/

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Answer 2

Jul 18, 2017 2:48 AM in response to lucyfromwynnewood

Help... I can not open the terminal due to the fact that finder is not responding....

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Answer 3

Jul 18, 2017 2:58 AM in response to WZZZ

I have managed to get to the terminal but I get this reply to the both your command lines: Argument list too long

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