In order to force a re-spawn does everything need to be removed from the container or can you remove less or even only one object ?

Thanks,
hagar

I am pretty sure that if you remove at least one item, you will force a re-spawn...its takes about 3 in game days

What forces a re-spawn is you the character leaving that game cell for three days. I would suggest removing everything from the container except a single arrow, if you are testing for "safeness."

Even those chests that have had nothing removed will respawn each time the cell respawns (you just will not notice since the same items will spawn in most cases) -- so no matter how many items you do or do not remove the chest inventory will be reset when the cell respawns.

Thanks to all for the answers . I was not looking for storage, just curious . Much of the time I only take what I want from a container so I wasn't sure if that would cause a respawn or not .

Thanks again .

hagar