How To Empty the Ubuntu Gnome Trash from the Command Line

Ubuntu has a trash can/recycle bin feature similar to windows. The difference with Ubuntu is that you can empty the trash from the command line.

Here’s the full trash icon, in the lower right hand corner:

Just open a terminal and type in the following command:

rm -rf ~/.Trash/*

Trash has been taken out!

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This article was originally written on 12/13/06 Tagged with: Ubuntu, Ubuntu Tips & Tweaks

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Comments (10)

1. July 22, 2007 4:42 pm
   Sayne

   Thank you for this. There was some old src files in my bin that I didn’t have permission to delete (I don’t know how), and with this command all I had to do was add a sudo in front and it worked brilliantly! Cheers!

2. September 2, 2007 11:44 am
   mozey

   heheh, ofcourse!, .Trash!!!!!!!, where else would it be!? i was looking for that damn directory for a long time!.

3. October 20, 2007 2:47 pm
   Tom

   I can’t get this to work in 7.10. Has the command changed?

4. May 21, 2008 5:49 pm
   xMoDx

   not working on Ubuntu Hardy

5. May 21, 2008 6:28 pm
   xMoDx

   i found a fix here

   http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=5014310

   User trash is in /home/username/.local/share/Trash

   Root trash is in /root/.local/share/Trash

   There are usually 2 subfolders in each of these, ‘files’ and ‘info’

6. May 25, 2008 10:15 pm
   Joel

   Yeah i got mine to work using the command: sudo rm -rf ‘/home/username/.local/share/Trash’ on Ubuntu 8.04. Thanks a bunch as I needed this since I put files into the trash that were read-only, so then I didn’t have permission to delete my own files. Damn I hate permissions sumetimes.

7. May 31, 2008 4:30 am
   sam

   For those of you who could not find the solution try this

   In the command line type the following
   $sudo nautilus /home/[your user folder]

   After this a window will open then view the hidden files using Ctrl+h and go to .local/share/Trash/files

   There you will find the files that are in trash remove it directly…

   This is found in ubuntu 8.04

   Oh already Joel has told that any way i am submitting it. Only after typing it i found it.

8. September 4, 2008 1:52 am
   Liquid

   LoL, he was type it 6 days before you…..

9. December 5, 2008 5:50 am
   Priya

   sudo rm -rf ‘/home/username/.local/share/Trash’ on Ubuntu 8.04
   thanks alot…

10. March 12, 2009 6:09 pm
    Bodsda

    Just in case anyone was blissfully unaware, the command

    sudo rm -rf ~/.Trash/*

    means, remove recursively(include subfolders, and subsubfolders etc.) forceably(dont ask me for confirmation) everything in this folder(The * is a wildcard meaning it matches ‘everything’ in the folder)

    so whatever you do, dont do

    sudo rm -rf /*

    unless you want to loose all your data

    Bodsda