Emptying Trash hangs on "Emptying the Trash..." dialogue box

Apple engineers do not visit or read these posts. We're all end users like yourself. Tell Apple about the problem via Feedback - macOS - Apple.  

Download and run Etrecheck. Be sure to give it Full Disk access before running.

Copy and paste the results into your reply. Etrecheck is a diagnostic tool that was developed by one of the most respected users here in the ASC and recommended by Apple Support  to provide a snapshot of the system and help identify the more obvious culprits that can adversely affect a Mac's performance.

Copy the report

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Then we can evaluate the report to see if we can determine the cause of the problem.

So many threads on this. Apple, what do you think? Fix this bug?

Nope. Problem always returns after a bit of usage. Reboot is the only solution. Hey Apple, Remember when you used to QA your software?

enavi wrote:

Mac Air M1, latest Ventura. When I attempt to empty the Trash, the process hangs on "Emptying the Trash..." dialogue.

Only solution I've found is to reboot and immediately empty the trash. But the issue will return after some time, and it's annoying to reboot every time I want to empty the trash. Occurs whether there's a single small file or a large number of files.

This user had the exact same issue: Emptying the trash bin takes forever, eve… - Apple Community

However, their solution involved external drives and I am not using external drives.

From the Finder try holding the Option key when you select empty trash... and compare your results

Instead of a normal reboot try booting into Safe Mode according to How to use safe mode on your Mac and test to see if the problem persists. Reboot normally and test again.

NOTE 1: Safe Mode boot can take up to 3 - 5 minutes as it's doing the following; 

• Verifies your startup disk and attempts to repair directory issues, if needed

• Loads only required kernel extensions (prevents 3rd party kernel/extensions from loading)

• Prevents Startup Items and Login Items from opening automatically

• Disables user-installed fonts 

• Deletes font caches, kernel cache, and other system cache files

NOTE 2: if you have a wireless keyboard with rechargeable batteries connect it with its charging cable before booting into Safe Mode. This makes it act as a wired keyboard as will insure a successful boot into Safe Mode.

I am at <50% disk use. This problem is unrelated to available disk space, at least for me.

This did not work for me

I have Sonoma 14.1.2

The problem briefly went away but came back with Sonoma 14.3.1 (23D60)

Apple, fix this issue.

It is generally a good computer practice to alway keep at least 20% to 25% of the Total Drive Capacity’s as Empty Space.

Allowing the computer to drop below these guidelines may eventually cause unintended consequences including what the computer is experiencing now.

The fact you have to Restarting the computer and then immediately Empty the Trash could be a system of lack of Empty Space

I have the same problem with Sonoma, and one solution that doesn't require a reboot is to use the "force quit application" ("Sofort beenden") option. There, find the Finder application and restart it, and you can empty the trash.

Hello I had this problem for long since Ventura (maybe even Monterey, I don't remember exactly) and it persisted across several Mac OS version updates. I was not able to find a fix. At a certain point it disappeared (don't know why). After several months, the issue is now back. Actually I'm on Mac OS Sonoma 14.2.1

(ps: I also don't have external drives, however I have google drive and dropbox services active with respective shared folders, but couldn't relate the trash issue with them)

February 2024 and running Sonoma 14.3 on my 2018 Intel Mac mini and just noticing this problem since I updated to 14.3 now. I was having the issue with a 500GB WD Blue SSD external in a dock. It was taking 20-30 minutes to empty the trash so thought the SSD was messed up. Switched to a newly formatted 2TB WD Blue SSD and same issue. So many problems I'm having in this 14.3 update. Mac OS is getting less fun to use. The new Mail app problems with corrupted text since 14.3 is another annoying issue. So frustrating.

I started having this problem with Ventura on my M1 MacBook Pro a few weeks ago. It went away when I upgraded to Ventura 13.6.4 this morning, then came back later on this evening. I suspect it was the reboot after the upgrade that made it temporarily go away. What I don't understand is why it appeared in the first place, as so far as I know nothing had changed on my system to make it happen (I had not downloaded any new software or upgraded existing software). I have plenty of space on my internal drive, connect an external drive just for weekly backups using SuperDuper, and don't use the cloud for anything. I know the trash does empty when I close the "emptying trash" dialog box, but it's an irritating annoyance that I wish Apple would sort out! I've been vaguely tempted to upgrade to Sonoma, but having read that this bug is also making an appearance in the latest version I think I'll hold off a little longer - so far this and an annoying intermittent bluetooth issue when connecting to my android phone are the only bugs I've seen so far in Ventura.

Have this issue since month. Now on Somona 14.3.1 and the bug still exist. When try to delete the trash dialog runs for ever "Deleting trash...", when clicking the stop button, the dialog runs "Stopping deleting the trash..." runs for ever. Only restarting the Finder or Mac works and after that I move all files out of the trash into a temp folder r and delete the files step by step. I remember times when I not have to update MacOS every week and there were less bugs.