Hello! I am an administrator for a group library. In trying to troubleshoot some sync errors we've been experiencing, I decided to try and cut down the size of the library by archiving (exporting and deleting from zotero) some of the collections. I am using the Zotero Standalone app for Mac, and I made the changes to on my local machine. The changes haven't synced to the server yet, and I suspect it's because the library is simply too large. The Trash has >27000 items in it. Here's my problem:

I have tried to empty the trash, in hopes that once the excess items are gone, it will force a sync and resolve all the sync problems we've had. But the trash is simply too large to empty. Using the right click--> empty trash causes zotero to hang, even when it is the only program open. I've let the program run for 2 days uninterrupted hoping it would eventually process, but given enough time Zotero just crashes and the trash remains full. I am able to delete individual items manually, but this is untenable for the number of items I have (it takes about 30 seconds to process the deletion, which seems like a long time, - I am using a macbook pro with an i5 processor).

so my question is: Is there any way to resolve this apparent catch-22 I'm in? is there a "multiple select / delete" command that I'm missing so I can empty the trash by the hundreds or thousand instead of one at a time? A multiple select--> delete command seems to do nothing. Is there another workaround to delete the trash? Using the server-side seems to be out, since my own library won't sync. What would happen if I went into the Mac library files and tried deleting the Trash that way?

Ultimately I may export the important libraries and start from scratch, abandoning this one. If there's a better option, please let me know! thanks!