Can't delete or move item from trash using sudo rm in terminal, in superuser account, or even single user mode At some point in the past I was messing around with the battery menu on my 2012 macbook pro running High Sierra to see if I could it to display the estimated time remaining rather than a percentage. Anywho, I created a copy of the file /System/Library/CoreServices/Menu Extras/Battery.menu which I no longer needed, so I trashed it.

Since then I have been unable to move the item from the trash or delete it.

I have tried:


deleting normally
using the force delete option (option + delete)
trying to drag item out of trash (makes a copy, which is deletable)
sudo rm -vrf ~/.Trash/Battery.menu (result: Operation not permitted)
renaming and moving the file with sudo mv ~/.Trash/Battery.menu (result: Operation not permitted)
running the above commands after su in terminal
using the root account to try the above
booting into single user mode, mounting the file system, using above commands. (result: Operation not permitted)
using setfile to try to set the busy attribute to not busy and to unlock the file (though it is not locked) using setfile -a z ~/.Trash/Battery.menu. Result: 
ERROR: Unexpected Error. (-5000)  on file: /Users/myuser/.Trash/Battery.menu
repairing permissions, then trying everything again
booting into recovery, turning off SIP, and trying to delete again.


Any ideas?

Thanks for your help!
I recently had a file I could not delete from Trash. Finally I moved it from the trash back to the desktop, which I have synced to iCloud. Then I was apple to use the Files app on my iphone to delete it.

Another path to pursue: boot to recovery and turn off SIP (until you get the file deleted.)