If you are on Mac OS and have ever tried to empty out your time machine backup disk, you’ve no doubt run into this issue. Emptying the trash, when you have just deleted a 100,000+ files will take hours…literally. Fortunately, there are solutions.

1. Try the command line:
Open up Terminal.app and go to the trash folder that you want to empty:
cd /Volumes/<name of your drive>/.Trash/
rm -rf <directory you want to delete> (usually its 501)

2. Delete backups from within Time Machine to empty out space:
Fire up Time Machine. By default, you should be in the current time (now). In the Finder window that open’s up, there’s a small gear icon. Click it and select the option “Delete old backup’s for xxxxxx”. Easiest way to free up space!

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