Unable to delete folder located in "Trash" in Ubuntu 18.04.4 LTS

Question

I am trying to delete a folder that I imported from a MacOS device using SMB, but I have not yet found a way to delete it. I tried using the Nautilus utility to gain permissions to delete the folder, but it did not work. I also obtain the same results when trying to restore the folder. The error occurs even when elevating the account, The folder is quite small in size, 1 GB approximately.

Any ideas?

Error message:

Solution

You always have the permission to do anything on Linux (Ubuntu in this case). Whenever you are prompted with

You don't have sufficient permission

always use sudo. Except when you are not a sudo user, in which case you can't do anything.

Use the terminal to gain sudo access.

1. Open trash by typing cd .local/share/Trash in terminal.
2. Type sudo rm -rf * sudo gives you the permission, rm is the command to remove and -rf is the force remove flag, and * means everything. i.e., it will empty you trash.
3. If you want to delete a particular file then instead of step 2 type sudo rm -rf FileName which in your case FileName is 'Videos Edit'.

Comments

[Raffa]

Does this answer your question? Empty trash hangs

[Sadaharu Wakisaka]

Welcome to AskUbuntu, trash-empty command is safer. sudo apt install trash-cli askubuntu.com/questions/468721/…

[Ibex Capra]

Hi, thanks for the response. I attempted this step without success. The folder is still there for some reason, no matter if I attempt from the terminal or Files.

[Ibex Capra]

Thanks for your help. I managed to follow your steps within the terminal but without success. The folder still remains in the Trash folder. Kind Regards!

[Abhay Patil]

@peter Type "sudo su" and then the password. And then again try "rm -rf Videos Edit" command in the trash directory. It should not make any difference but try once.

[Carmine]

be carefull to rmeove only the files/ directory to actually need to be removed