Hi, thank you for your question about the Dirt Devil Power Express Lite Stick Vacuum. We are here to help! To empty your dirt cup, you need to remove the hand vac from your stick vacuum. Once you do that, please press the grey filter button on the top of your hand vac. This will detach the dirt cup from your unit so you can dump its contents into the trash. We hope this helps! Thanks, Cierra -The Dirt Devil Team