I cannot delete files from root's Trash

Question

I deleted some large files from nautilus launched as sudo. They still show in /home/.Trash-0/files/<foldername> when I type sudo sh -c "du -h /home | grep -P '[0-9]G\t'" but when I type sudo rm /home/.Trash-0/files/* I get the message:

rm: cannot remove `/home/.Trash-0/files/*': No such file or directory

I was able to delete individual files with their exact file names in place of *, but when I used *, it gave the error message as above. I do not want to have to delete them all individually if I can help it.

Solution 1

[Taken from Thread: I can't empty the trash as a user]

(Solution posted works in Ubuntu 13.10.)

The Trash folder is a hidden folder(the folders name begins with a period) in your home directory. You can press Ctrl+H in nautilus or select Show Hidden Folder from the View menu to list the hidden folders.

You can open nautilus in the .Trash folder:

gksu nautilus ~/.Trash

in Hardy Heron the Trash is in ~/.local/share/Trash/files/

gksu nautilus ~/.local/share/Trash/files/

Select the items you want to delete in the folder.

OR

You can delete the content of the folder from the terminal:

sudo rm -fr ~/.Trash/*

Hardy Heron:

sudo rm -fr ~/.local/share/Trash/files/*

Solution 2

Fixed it now by:

sudo -i to get into the root account, and then cd to /home/.Trash-0/info. Then rm -rf *. Then cd ../files/. Then rm -rf * again. Appears to have worked.

Comments

[Wayne Len]

Directory doesn't exist

[web.learner]

Running Nautilus with plain sudo is not recommended.

[JohnDoe]

I guess so but it works for me.

[web.learner]

Oh it works.. sorta. It causes problems later. See: askubuntu.com/questions/11760/…