thats odd?

It works on my 10.8.3 setup, ill look into it.

Ive just updated the Empty Trash script, try d/l v1.3.2 and see if it works better for you.

I’m afraid v. 1.3.2 has no effect either — force-emptying the trash does nothing. I thought that this might be caused by the fact that I have my Mid-2012 2.9 GHz i7 MacBook Pro's hard disk partitioned into 2 volumes (Main and Scratch) and the OS is only installed on 1 of them (Main), while all data (including my Home folder) is stored on the Scratch partition. But, DesktopUtility has always worked fine with that setup until now, so I don’t know what the problem is.

I’ve been running this setup since I bought my MBP last July, and I like to reinstall the OS occasionally, so I’ll take this opportunity to reinstall over the next day or so and later report whether that helped.

I finally figured out why DesktopUtility 1.3.3's Force Empty Trash function doesn't always work. This time, running on my main partition, it only emptied half of the items in my Trash, leaving the other 3 items untouched. And, when I ran it again, it still wouldn't empty those items. The 3 files that it wouldn't empty each came from outside the main partition: 1) version 1.3.2 of "DesktopUtility.app" came from the Applications folder of my Emergency partition; 2) "DesktopUtility 1.3.2.7z" came from the 500 GB portable USB drive on which I store copies of all my software, and it was still attached and mounted when I ran the Force Empty Trash command; and 3) "GIS Spatially Referenced Remote Imaging Data Acquisition Methods.txt" came from my 3rd partition, on which I store only data (that doc was a third copy stored there while I was writing the article). The files that it did empty were of a similar nature, but all came from the main partition.

I thought that maybe DesktopUtility might be behaving oddly because I had it sort of hidden away in my Bartender 1.0.9 menubar item, but I tried unhiding it and using the Force Empty Trash command straight from DesktopUtility's own menubar item, but it still wouldn't empty those 3 items.

But, all along, I've been assuming that the Force Empty Trash command should work on all files in the startup drive's Trash folder no matter where they came from, just so long as those volumes were attached and mounted when the command was initiated. Once I realized that the files which DesktopUtility ignored came from non-startup volumes, I realized that my original premise was flawed. I confirmed this by running a couple of other freeware/shareware apps' Force Empty Trash command, and they too failed to empty the files that came from outside of the startup volume. Only running the regular Empty Trash or Secure Empty Trash command from the Finder menu would empty those files.

So that's it, DesktopUtility is not faulty, my reasoning was.

does this version work any better:
http://sweetpproductions.com/products/desktoputility/DesktopUtility134.zip

Yes! Version 1.3.4's Force Empty Trash function now works on whatever is in the startup volume's Trash folder, whether it came from the startup volume or not.

The only (tiny) issue I noticed was that the normal Trash emptying sound effect was absent while DesktopUtility performed the Force Empty Trash function.

Great job, Sweetp Productions.

ok, thanks for the detective work, and the feedback.
Ive added in the trash sound to the official v1.3.4,
just d/l from here, or my website:
www.swetpproductions.com

:)

what exactly isnt working?

Its working fine on my MacBook Air, running 10.8.
send me an email at:
info at sweetpproductions dot com