Can’t Empty the Trash

If you’re having trouble emptying the Trash, start by holding down the mouse on the Trash icon itself. When you choose Empty Trash from the pop-up menu, Mac OS X empties the Trash without complaint, locked files and all.

If emptying the Trash gives you “Could not be completed because this item is owned by Marge,” you’re trying to move or delete another Mac account holder’s stuff. As you know, that’s a big no-no in Mac OS X.

In that case, just make yourself the new owner of the file or folder, as described in the box in Appendix B.4.

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