Undeletable File - Delete

How to Delete an "Undeletable" File​

   Information

This tutorial shows you how to delete undeletable files and folders. There are times when explorer.exe somehow locks files into place and won't allow them to be deleted. In order to delete them you must close explorer.exe and use a command prompt to delete the file.

   Tip

Be very careful when deleting files through command prompt, it's possible you could accidently delete the wrong file.

1. - Open an elevated command prompt
Start > Search "cmd" > Right Click cmd.exe > Run as Administrator


2. - Leave Command prompt open; Open task manager

3. - End process "explorer.exe"



4. - Switch back to command prompt

5A. - FILE - Change to the directory of your file and delete it.
First run this line: cd "PATH OF YOUR FILE"
i.e. cd "%USERPROFILE%"\Downloads"
Now run this line: del filename.extension
i.e. del filename.mkv


5B. - FOLDER - Delete the folder.
Enter Command: RD /S /Q [DRIVE:]\PATH\TO\FOLDER
i.e
RD /S /Q C:\Users\[username]\Downloads\FOLDERNAME


6. - Switch back to task manager

7. - Restart "explorer.exe"

Related Tutorials

---

• How to Delete a File from the Command Prompt
• How to Delete a Folder from the Command Prompt

 

[drifking8887]

thank you very much.it was a real sick for me. thanx again

 

[claudzen17]

men..!! thanks for this wonderful tweaks it took me 7hours just finding for the right solution!
this works with me, now my undeletable file is gone forever..
i have registered myself here just to give you my thanks..

 

[swilly]

Thanks notsograymatter,

Excellent solution to a problem that had troubled me for a few days. It worked for me deleting files from an external USB drive, on Windows Server 2008R2. Much appreciated.

 

[lavanya46]

Thanks, this was a great help. Worked perfectly.

 

[Hellblazre]

Good god, THANK YOU! I had this url link i couldnt delete and thanks to your technique i finally got rid of the little *******. XD

 

[tweakradje]

Thanks for the solution.

Something is wrong with explorer in Windows 7 (apart from the annoying copy/calculating etc. while copy/del)

I also thought it had something todo with with ownership, but it hasn't. My trick was always:

takeown.exe /F "*" /a /r /d y (with elevated cmd box) and it worked. But only after a wait.

This owner unknown trouble always start with a explorer map move, an update of a program, or another file operation.
What happens I think is that the file is marked for deletion, ownership already removed, and waits for explorer to remove it from memory(?), so that it can be removed from disk. I have (super-)(pre-)fetch disabled btw.

I hope someone finds the cause of this.

 

[Audio86]

Help....this doesn't work!

I have tried all these tricks and Assassin etc. and still have 6 .m4a files hanging out on my desktop. More ideas?!

Thanks

 

[Brink]

Hello Audio86, and welcome to Seven Forums.

See if you may be able to delete them in a command prompt at boot (step 4 below) instead.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/55728-file-delete-command-prompt.html

Hope this helps,
Shawn

 

[rp9591]

I had this same problem with a desktop folder w/subfolders on WIN 8 64bit machine....Could not delete a couple of 0 byte files no matter what I tried but listed below did the trick.

DOS Command RMDIR - If you have a directory file that cannot be deleted. If trying to delete and you receive an error message that the file cannot be found and you have tried changing permissions and that fails. Usually the file type shows as "file" and size = 0 Make sure there are no existing file(s) you want to keep In the target directory or any sub-directory.

In this case I am using stuff as the target directory
1) Open command prompt as administrator
2) Change to the parent directory ex. C:\Users\bullwinkle\Desktop
3) Type the following RMDIR stuff /s /q
/S Removes all directories and files in the specified directory in addition to the directory itself. Used to remove a directory tree.
/Q Quiet mode, do not ask if ok to remove a directory tree with /S

This can also be done in an elevated command prompt with the del command to target an individual file as well. For help and list of
switches type del /?

 

[Manner]

Thank you

That's a great solution for me...

 

[VRod007]

Solution worked! But, besides an English file, I had one in Russian and another in Arabic. All 3 files showed the extension name "eastobuy" in explorer window but no (dot)extension. All were downloaded from Youtube using clipconverter.cc website. I created a second temp folder Download 2 and moved all files except undeletable files. Then instead of naming each file to delete inside the Download folder I entered del *.* and BAM... GONE! Thanks for the solution!

 

[raaga]

thanks man g8 ,,, keep going

 

[tweakradje]

This look like the solution for me. It is a very undocumented registry entry. I use this for 6 months now and I haven't had the problem anymore.

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\ShellTaskScheduler]
"MaxWorkerThreadsPerScheduler"=dword:000000ff

I found that the same value is also queried in HKCU first.

It might be to high, the default value looks to be 5.

Cheers

 

[apb]

I have had the undeletable file problem when I end up with a file name that is reserved by windows. In my case, it has been "NUL".

The solution I found to this problem, from Del - Delete Files | Windows CMD | SS64.com is this:

Files are sometimes created with the very long filenames or reserved names: CON, AUX, COM1, COM2, COM3, COM4, LPT1, LPT2, LPT3, PRN, NUL
To delete these use the syntax:

DEL \\.\C:\somedir\LPT1

Alternatively SUBST a drive letter to the folder containing the file.

 

[zibiza]

Thank you, Not So Gray Matter! I have Windows 8.1 and the command prompt instructions that you posted, along with the brilliant graphic instructions worked very well. I have never had this problem (folder on desktop would not delete) and I have almost never had to search so long for a solution that applied to my issue. I joined the Seven Forums especially to thank you!

 

[RoWin7]

I've been using the utility Unlocker for years. It works in Windows mode.

 

[gib]

Hi,

I've got a huge problem. I tried this trick because I can't delete one folder which was downloaded from Google drive. I have this folder on D:. Just D, no additional path. So, when i tried to erase it like it was described here, I mistakenly erased many other very important folders (the problematic one is of course still there). Please help me bring my folders on D back, some very important stuff for me are there!

Thanky you!

 

[Brink]

Hello Gib, and welcome to Seven Forums.

You might see if the free programs "Unlocker" or "FileAssassin" may be able to delete it for you.

Download Unlocker - MajorGeeks

FileASSASSIN - Free Software to Delete Locked Files | Malwarebytes

 

[TheDeerDude]

Hi,

Please help me bring my folders on D back, some very important stuff for me are there!

Thanky you!

Stop using the D drive - don't write any new files to it. Then, download and install Recuva from Priform, on the C drive, and use it to try to recover the folders and their contents. Run a "deep scan" in Recuva if it doesn't find everything. As long as you didn't overwrite the free space where your files were, you should be able to recover them. Be aware that they may not be organized in the folders they were originally in.

Recuva: Download Recuva | Recover deleted files, free!