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jdechko

macrumors 601
Original poster
Jul 1, 2004
4,230
325
I'm on Big Sur, but I downloaded the High Sierra installer to create a USB installation stick for an older machine. Now I can't delete the installer off of my drive. If I try to delete it from the trash, it says that it is in use and cannot be deleted. I've tried the terminal command

Code:
sudo rm -rf path_to_installation

but I get errors that say it cannot be deleted and that the directory is not empty.

It's sitting there taking up 4GB on my drive and I'd really like to recover that space.

Thanks
 

jdechko

macrumors 601
Original poster
Jul 1, 2004
4,230
325
It's a lingering issue, so I've definitely rebooted. Yes, it's unmounted. And I freed up a bunch of other space, but it's more the principle of the fact that I can't remove a file that I should be able to
 

MarkC426

macrumors 68040
May 14, 2008
3,579
2,004
UK
Have you tried restoring to original location, then:

After selecting it in Finder, use either of these methods to permanently delete a file on a Mac without sending it to the Trash first:
  1. Hold the Option key and go to File > Delete Immediately from the menu bar.
  2. Press Option + Command (⌘) + Delete.
 
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jdechko

macrumors 601
Original poster
Jul 1, 2004
4,230
325
Neither of those options worked. However, I was researching the issue, and a post on the Apple forums suggested disabling SIP. I couldn't delete it directly, but the terminal command worked.

Cheers
 
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