Salesforce Recycle Bin Error: Time Limit Exceeded When Emptying Org Recycle Bin

When the Salesforce Org Recycle Bin contains a high volume of soft-deleted records, the standard empty operation times out and the Recycle Bin encounters an exception that prevents the purge from completing.

The error occurs due to the org having a high count of soft deleted records, the Recycle Bin encounters an exception which does not allow the purge to complete.

Steps to Reproduce:

1. Go to Recycle Bin 
2. Click on “Empty your Organization’s recycle bin” 
3. Wait a while and you will see that you’ll get the following error: 

Time limit exceeded 
Your request exceeded the time limit for processing.

Resolution

To resolve this issue, log a case and ask Salesforce Support to reference article 001040161. Support can manually purge the Recycle Bin.

Before Support can proceed, a Salesforce Administrator must provide written permission authorizing Support to manually purge the org's Recycle Bin. Please include this written approval when logging your case.