The simple solution is to close every app on your Mac, saving your documents to a safe location as you do so. For example, you can’t delete a Pages document if you’ve still got that document open in the Pages app. You can’t empty the Trash on your Mac if one of the files you’re trying to delete is already in use. Close apps that might block you emptying the Trash You may need to Force Quit apps that aren’t responding. How do I erase my Mac and restore data from a backup?.How do I use Terminal to empty the Trash on my Mac?.Use Terminal to forcefully empty the Trash How do I find and unlock locked files in the Trash?.Check the files in your Trash aren’t locked How do I delete files immediately without emptying the Trash?.Delete files immediately without emptying the Trash How do I use Disk Utility to run First Aid on my Mac?.Use Disk Utility to repair corruptions on your disk Boot your Mac into Safe Mode to stop background processes How do I close every app and restart my Mac?.Close apps that might block you emptying the Trash How do you delete Time Machine backups from the Trash?.Can’t delete a file on macOS because it’s ’In Use’? Try this!.What is “Other” storage on iPhone or Mac and how do I get rid of it?.The startup disk is almost full on my Mac but I can’t delete anything!.Save yourself time by trying to empty the Trash again after each step. Counter-intuitively, when this happens it becomes impossible to delete anything.įortunately, whatever caused your problems, you can easily fix it with the steps below. Some users ignored the storage warnings on their Mac for so long their hard drive or SSD completely filled up. Sometimes you might have a corrupt file that can’t be removed, other times you might be trying to delete an important system file that is protected by macOS. There are plenty of reasons why you might not be able to empty the Trash. It’s a frustrating problem, but we can show you how to fix it today! So if you can’t empty the Trash, you might quickly find yourself running out of storage on your Mac altogether. Files in the Trash still take up space on your Mac.