Every Linux distribution provides a certain way to empty the trash. You can even empty trash from the terminal. I’ll show you both ways in this quick tutorial.
Method 1: Empty trash using GUI
Some Linux distributions (or more accurately desktop environments) have the trash bin aka the recycle bin on the desktop itself. You can empty the trash from here by right-clicking on it.
In other desktop environments, you can empty the trash from the file manager. Just look for ‘Trash’ icon and right click on it and empty the trash.
That’s how I clean the recycle bin in Ubuntu.
But the other day I ran in to an issue while emptying trash in Ubuntu. I right clicked on the trash icon and chose Empty Trash option, like I always do. It took some time with a progress bar showing that it was in the process of deleting the files in trash. But it just got stuck at it and I got ended with a frozen Nautilus File manager. I had to kill the process terminal.
But this was painful because the files in trash were still there. And my repeated attempts to delete the trash resulted in same frozen window.
Method 2: Empty trash from terminal in Linux
Honestly, I do not know what caused this issue in the first place. But I do have a solution for you if you too are facing issue in deleting the trash via GUI in Ubuntu.
The location of the trash in Ubuntu (and other Linux) is .local/share/Trash/ in your home directory. To empty trash, you can delete the contents of this directory.
Open a terminal and use the following command:
rm -rf ~/.local/share/Trash/*Now be careful in what you type. You are using the remove command. I trust you that you won’t be deleting any other files or directory. Otherwise recovering deleted files in Linux is a painful job.
You could cd into trash first and then remove the content of the directory.
The above mentioned command is deleting all the files in Trash directory. In other words, it is emptying the trash in command line way. Once you use that command, you’ll see that the Trash has been emptied. If you delete any new files, you should not be having the same freezing Nautilus issue again.
Keep in mind that if you delete files in Linux using the rm command, it doesn’t go to the recycle bin.
Worked for you?
I hope this little tip worked for you and you can empty the trash without any further issue in Ubuntu or any other Linux distribution. Do let me know if you face any issue.
Hey, thanks for your instructions here! This problem occurred on a fresh install and you instructions worked, Ubuntu 18.04. My 20gb virtual machine became full after installing mdadm and trying to install VMware tools.
Now, why Linux, WHY do you have to be so difficult that you need superuser privileges to empty the trash as a logged in user? Why does every operation turn into a stinking experience with a terminal window and cryptic command line instructions must be used [Linux, can you see my shaking fist]? With Linux, the SIMPLEST things become difficult, even with the best user experience of Ubuntu. Ok, breathe… breathe.
Namaste Abu! Thank you a lot! Since 2 years now i didnt deleted my trash … . Thank you again and namaste too!
I had this issue today! I did, sudo apt install trash-cli , then sudo trash-empty . It worked.
As I built gcc i made a typo in the user name, as a result it created a new folder in /home/. I sent it to trash but unfortunately this created a bug where if I clicked “empty trash” the trash would remain un-emptied.
Your command solved my problem thanks.
No this did mot work for me. I did an update one day a d the issue was resolved.
Whatever little I know about the commandline, the command should have worked. In case it did not work, there may a deeper malady (maybe a bug affecting more than one file)