The other day, I had a customer come into the store who was having issues emptying her trash. We tried all the normal prompts, did PRAM resets, and nothing would work.
Using Terminal, there is a quick and easy way to empty the trash if you ever hit hangups while doing so. Just navigate to the Terminal app, open it up and enter the following:
sudo rm -rf ~/.Trash/*
Since this command uses sudo, you will be required to enter your password at this point. After that, you’ll see that your Trash can icon is satisfyingly empty — and you’ll have your hard drive space back.
As always, operate Terminal with care, as you can damage system folders if you enter the prompts incorrectly.