how to delete undeletable files

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How to Delete Undeletable Files & Folders in Windows 10

This video will show you how to delete undeletable files and folders in Windows 10. It includes the following:

Irremovable Items & Software
Manual Deletion (Command Prompt)
Irremovable Directories

Items that won't get removed

Sometimes you may come across an item that you can't remove from your PC. No matter how many times you've dragged it to the recycle bin, it remains there, or gives you the same error message showing that "The action can't be completed, because the item is in use". Below are some more articles and tips on removing software items that don't want to get eliminated from your system.

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How to deal with irremovable items in Windows

It's a good habit to clean your computer and keep it free from any junk or irrelevant software that occupy unnecessary space on the hard drive. Sometimes, despite having administrative privileges in Windows, users will face an issue where they are not able to remove some items. It may be Spyware or something malicious that got installed on your computer, but the case of it being a software conflict can also be likely. These items need to be force removed, because error messages may occur when normally deleting them. You can also use IOBit Unlocker to unlock and remove them. To permanently remove items on your computer use this guide.

In some circumstances, when you try and remove items, it is not possible because it is being used by essential processes from software running in the background, which cannot be removed because Windows prevents changes to the item when it's being used by another process. In other cases of deleting these irremovable items, some frequent error messages that may appear in Windows when trying to remove locked or delete undeletable files and folders are as follows:

The source or destination is in use.
There has been a sharing violation.
The specified item is in use by another program.
Cannot remove the item: Access is denied.
The path or directory is corrupt or unreadable.

Once you receive these error messages, the items that you are trying to remove aren't simply able to be removed in the standard way. These items or folders have to get force removed manually, or by means of 3rd party software.

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Methods for deleting irremovable items

Reboot the system into safe mode – Try and delete undeletable files or folder in safe mode.
Use deletion software – Software like BitRase Eraser can be downloaded and used to forcefully remove any corrupt or locked folders.
Use System Checker – Open a command prompt window as administrator and type in "sfc /scannow" to check Windows for errors.

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Using the command prompt

The Windows command prompt is also a tool that you can use for items that don't want to get removed. Open a command prompt window as administrator and remove a single item by typing "del /f /q /a C:Users*location of the item*.

del – The root command used for the removal of singular items on your PC.
/f – This means that we are asking Windows to forcefully delete undeletable files or folders.
/q – This allows Windows to remove all the items in the directory you've specified.
/a – This manages the attributes of the item in question, and removes them based on the values.
/s – Not used, but it removes specified items from all subdirectories.
Be sure to replaced *location of the item* with the path to the items that you want to remove.

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Using 3rd party software

Another way you can remove these items is by downloading a 3rd party software application that is intended to be used for this scenario, we recommend software like Wise Force to get rid of irremovable items. There is also another free deletion software that can be downloaded from here.

We hope this has helped you to delete undeletable files and folders from your system. For any further assistance contact us directly via our website to get in touch with one of our techies.