Problems emptying trash

You can't empty the Trash or move a file to the Trash
Solving Trash Problems

 

So is anything IN the trash or just a jacked up graphic showing the trash to be full?
Can you do a ls -al on your ~/.Trash directory?

 

There's the script I use when Finder won't let me empty the Trash.

I actually have a keyboard shortcut set to run that script. If I press Shift+Down-Arrow it runs the script. That way I don't have to find the script in the Finder, then open it, which is ridiculous when all you want to do is empty your Trash.

Hope you figure out the Trash issue so you can empty without Terminal, but the script will work.

 

I have dealt with this before too.

For me it always happens when I have several tiny files. Like deleting a couple of git repos. I always am able to clear it by running rm -rf ~/.Trash/* and letting that run for several hours. Sometimes it will show permission issues or the like, those can be overcome by using sudo (be careful). I have never had the trash not clear up, but it has, on occasion taking a REALLY long time(3 days is my record so far).

Finder doesn't seem to like to remove thousands/millions of tiny files from the trash. It seems to be file system related though.

Always run "Verify permissions" and "Verify Disk" before and after though. Specially if you had to use sudo.

 

Maybe it's the Time Machine

There are many ways to go around this:

1. Resetting the PRAM does the trick
2. In the Terminal, just force the deletion of all files from the Trash: rm -rfv ~/.Trash/*
3. etc.

But sometimes the solution is way simpler: there's a file that was opened by an application e.g. Time Machine.

Here's what worked for me:

1. Restarted, unchecking Reopen windows when logging back in. Didn't work => it's not the actively running apps.
2. After temporarily turning off Time Machine, emptying the Trash completed successfully!