Every now and again, I’ll find myself with some files sitting around in my trash that I can’t delete. This can be particularily problematic when I’ve got several gigs worth of stale ISOs sitting there giving me an error like

Error removing file: Permission denied

I like computers but I’m not a big fan of when they talk back. So here’s a quick and easy way to go into your system and nuke those files.

First, open up a terminal session (Applications-> Accessoris ->Terminal)

Now, type this:

cd /home/YOUR-USER-NAME/.local/share/Trash/files

Typing ‘ls’ at this point should reveal to you the folders and files you’re trying to delete. Now on to the nuking. If it’s just a few files, this will do:

sudo rm -f *

If it’s files, folders and files within folders, try this:

sudo rm -Rf *

No more stuck stuff in your trash.