7 Ways To Delete Files That Cannot Be Deleted

If 4 doesn’t work, try pressing F4 (you may need to hold down Fn while pressing F4). [1] X Trustworthy Source Microsoft Support Technical support and product information from Microsoft. Go to source

If there are multiple files hold “Ctrl” and click them to select multiple files.

If you’re still unable to delete the selected files, you may need to repair your PC’s hard drive before attempting to delete the files again.

Right-click the Recycle Bin icon. Click Empty Recycle Bin in the resulting drop-down menu. Click Yes when prompted.

Click Start. Click Power. Click Restart.

You must be signed in to an Administrative account on Windows to run the Command Prompt as an administrator.

If you to need to change drives in the command prompt, simply type the drive letter followed by a colon (i. e. “D:”)

To see a list of files and folders in a directory, type “dir” and press Enter.

If the file name has spaces in it (i. e. File Name. txt") place the file name in quotations (i. e. del “File Name. txt”)

Press “Ctrl + Shift + Esc” to open the Task Manager. Click an app that is open. Click “End Task’ in the lower-right corner.

You can double-click the “Devices and drives” heading to expand it if you don’t see any hard drives listed there. If your computer has more than one hard drive, click the hard drive on which the file you want to delete is stored.

If Windows finds any errors, they will be repaired automatically if possible.

You may still have to use Safe Mode to delete your file if the file is being used by a program or service. If you still can’t delete the file in question, the file is most likely either locked by another user or reserved as a system file. Either way, you won’t be able to delete the file.

If there are multiple files you want to delete from one location, you can hold down “Command” while clicking each file you want to delete.

If you’re still unable to delete the selected files, you may need to repair your Mac’s hard drive before attempting to delete the files again.

Click and hold the Trash app icon. Click Empty Trash in the resulting menu. Click Empty when prompted.

Click the Apple menu. Click Restart. . . . Click Restart when prompted.

Click the Magnifying Glass icon in the upper-right corner. Type Terminal in the search bar. Click the Terminal icon.

You can also type “ls” and press Enter to see a list of folders and files in the current directory.

If the file name has spaces in it, place the file name in quotations (i. e rm “text file. txt”)

Alternatively, you can type “rm -f” followed by the file name to force delete the file name.

The Recovery menu may take a few minutes to appear.

If your Mac has more than one hard drive, make sure you click the one on which the file you want to delete is stored.

Click the Apple Icon. Click Restart. . . Click Restart when prompted.

You may still need to use Safe Mode to delete the file if it’s used frequently by a default program. If you still can’t delete the file in question, the file is most likely either locked by another user or reserved as a system file. Either way, you won’t be able to delete the file.

Open the Google Play Store. Type “SD Maid” in the search bar at the top. Tap Install below SD Maid.

The first time you use this feature, you may be asked to grant SD Maid permissions to access your internal storage and SD card. If you receive a prompt asking if you would like to allow SD Maid to access your system, tap Allow to continue.

After deleting the file in SD Maid, you may want to check to make sure it is deleted in the My Files or Files app. If it hasn’t been deleted, try deleting it in the SD Maid app. You may be able to delete it after removing it using SD Maid. [7] X Research source