5 Easy Ways to Delete Undeletable Files and Folders

[@dkimcg]

I've had an undeletable folder on a drive for the last year. None of the methods I found using the command prompt worked. I was surprised and elated the WinRAR archive/delete original worked. Thank you so much! Just saved me a reformat and days of backing up!

[@wingsoffreedom7138]

Same bro 😂

[@b2Samaritan]

Worked for me too

[@jp99575w]

I've had 2 folders in my 'C' Drive that would not allow me to delete for some time now, and your 'Command Prompt' worked great. This also allowed me to get back 365mb's of storage. Thanks for all the videos you post, I've learned so much from you. Many thanks!

[@10master31]

I moved/copied the important files from local disk to desktop and formatted the disk where the stubborn folders/files were. Now, I am happy.

[@mohitmuhal]

Thankyou Man watched more than 50 videos but your 2nd method worked

[@colinrance5823]

I use IObit unlocker if I can't delete a file or folder. It's portable and never failed me yet. That being said these are good alternatives thanks for showing us other ways.

[@Britec09]

Thanks for sharing

[@muaviabashir1259]

Thanks Bro I was Gabbling Until I Found Your Comments Thank You Very Much

[@stawinson2761]

i Was trying to delete folder for an 2hours and nothing work untill i seen your comment, THANK YOU SO MUCH

[@glordium1951]

ty

[@Ralph254]

The only option that worked....Thanks man

[@Kiran-Rai]

Thank You 😊 This Really Worked Flawlessly.

[@aeornewscomm]

Thank you so much! Extremely helpful!

[@_aiborie]

Taking ownership/changing permissions did the job for me but neat options mentioned here, thank you!

[@Paulzpc]

I have had some folders that I couldn't delete, thank you for this informtion as always, very useful, great video.

[@Britec09]

You're welcome!

[@itisislam559]

i was suffer in this problem in 2 year today i can solv this to watch your video thnks buddy

[@iRawNS]

Thanks bro your second method is superb, I can't delete a pdf file last 6-7 month. amazing friend take love from INDIA

[@jonesgang]

Never thought about using winrar so that is something new. I have used the other methods many times. Thanks Brian!!

[@Britec09]

Happy to help!

[@PaulSmith-pl7fo]

Hi Brian. Yes, very useful. I would have liked that you explained the /s /q switches.

[@alonzomonroy8149]

It doesn't work 4 me. It always says that it's open in another program or it needs permission from me, but I don't know how the hell to do that!

[@MohammedQusayIT]

thank you so much the third one worked

[@evelynruiz189]

THAT ARCHIEVE ONE ... GIVES ME SPACE .... THANKS TO YOUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU...

[@legomaster9190]

Stubborn little bugger my folder was, didn't even bat an eye for the first method. The second one worked perfectly! Hah, a new use for Winrar or similar software! Thanks for the tips!

[@g.j.r.2268]

Thanks Brian, Winrar and cmd didnt work, but 7-zip did it. The easiest way for me.

[@paulomarqu3s]

Thanks a lot, excellent tut! Second method done it for me.👌

[@acerpredator2324]

thanks Bro ....

[@djdonbentley2141]

Good info . I need these special commands because I'm working on a special project. I'm taking a enterprise iot ltsc evaluation and attempting to convert It into full. There's a guy on former Twitter who claims it will work by replacing the sku folders with full version ones . The iso evaluation has issues as you know , Defender don't work right , idk . ill let you guys know how it goes, I just don't trust downloading the full ltsc from the shared Sources.

[@user-mo7el7zw1p]

I have no word brother Thankyou so much 💕 I got WinRAR method excellently tnx brother

[@drmarkintexas-400]

Thank you for sharing 🤗🏆🙏🇺🇲

[@Britec09]

Our pleasure!

[@phamphamphamhanni]

thanks, man. the winrar method works.

[@thanujamarisha8156]

thnaks man you save my Life😁😁👍👍

[@gonzosys]

The winrar tip is a good one for removing long file paths < 256 chars when all else fails

[@callfromduty9044]

Thanks man , winRAR method work.

[@notvoonch2684]

thank you so so much!

[@johngoard8272]

I really liked this video Brian as I am a command prompt fan LOL!! I also liked the other methods but cmd is so easy to do.

[@devgaming8677]

Thank you so much 👍😊

[@lalman1337]

tank u very much for the winrar metod //sweden

[@danila09d]

Thanks. Number two helped

[@InArcadiaSum]

I had a folder and subfolder which I couldn't delete as W11 told me they didn't exist. Tried all these methods and a couple more. In the end I used 7-Zip, navigated to subfolder, renamed it "xxxx" and then deleted it; then did the same for its parent folder. The folders were all through my backups, so I had to do this for each backup set. Painful!

[@classicliz]

Thank you ever so much. I used my 7-zip and voila, that terrible file folder was gone.

[@anugrahkv392]

Thank u 2 nd method worked

[@jadrankodraganic6777]

Amazing.. After two years plus, after all cmd prompt, God know how many programs who claimed to delete all and everything, finally I managed to delete unholy/undeletable folder with winrar.. Thank you very much!!

[@Britec09]

You are most welcome

[@jayrockcontent]

So you want us to use a program that you just stumbled upon to delete files? Come on dude!

[@thevoid6756]

brilliant. thank you. i can finally get rid of all the Adobe crap

[@kupwarayouthdevelopment]

Very Usefull Thanks for this trick

[@SuperSnidely]

Thanks Heaps - The ZIP-Trick did it. Very CLever. Cheers!

[@sajal4979]

It works. Thanks

[@Marcel-qm5qu]

thank you so much i had a virus and i deleted the file with it i am so happy thank you for this vid!!

[@easylife..9864]

Yaa, it is working. WinRAR. Thanks.

[@Catreaction8.20.24]

Thanks you Bro ,3rd on really help me, ❤❤❤

[@BalochiTyping]

thank you

[@KelticLad]

great tips thanks for sharing

[@Ranamor]

Thanks bro it works well

[@jonathanpowell7256]

What if the folder you want to delete is on a HI-Res audio player and not on the hard drive?

[@Yugo1peneto]

WinRAR is the way!! many thanks!!

[@theurbanfacts122]

thanks buudy

[@chrme187]

damn it help me the winrar thanks man

[@bigboyfunky9805]

super helpful

[@matheeshasathsara271]

thanks

[@RockyAllenLane]

I've tried all 5 of your suggestions plus many others to delete a strangely named file left in an extensive sub-directory scheme left by a program called Handy Backup. Nothing works. I'm now forced to format the drive and if that doesn't work, I'll delete the partition table.

[@esphilee]

I dual boot into Linux and delete it. It even allow me to view into the folder before deleting. I just did that moments ago. I had to remove some file left behind by OneDrive, I unlinked OneDrive Cloud backup, and move all my files from /Username/oneDrive/ to /Usename/. i hate how OneDrive and Xbox keep reviving after each windows update.

[@peterschmidt9942]

Yep, they're a PITA.

[@rjjeffreys]

You shoud do a video showing how to take ownership of a file/folder/directory/etc., if you have not already created one on your channel here.

[@Majestic-Queen77]

that desrves a subscribe finally un deleted able folders gone thnxs towin rnr tastic thnxs so much saves me some money repaires xD

[@jayarsipsilap9098]

Lol that archive thing worked...might want to actually purchase winrar now ....

[@khari83637]

What’s the difference between deleting user profiles via system properties vs deleting them via file explorer?

[@darkspongebob11]

deleteing users from file explorer is a big nono because there is stuff in other areas that wont be removed that way you might even still see the deleted user if you delete just the folder only

[@leoaiiola]

Even works with system 32. Just tested...

[@Britec09]

lol

[@seediffusion]

Enjoy your dead computer 😂

[@FOOTHILLS51]

I have a usb drive 128gb that was set to read only by mini partition tool being interrupted. Nothing i do will let me change it from read only state. Help!!!

[@user-px6qf1dq5y]

thx

[@vladrobert2087]

🎉tnx so much

[@Amaldevharidas]

bro your 2nd method worked. but deleted whole file . then how to recover files

[@mda5003]

Very often I delete a file but it stays there for several minutes before it disappears and sometimes a folder containing *.exe files won't delete unless I've deleted the files first.

[@darkspongebob11]

normally due to windows being dumb which you can press f5 or refresh to fix it faster and some reason if you run a exe it gets stuck in use even after you close it sometimes werid ik

[@KaiDoesVA]

thank you you beautiful beautiful man

[@brotherhood7596]

Please help, it keeps saying access is denied

[@seediffusion]

All files are technically undeleteable. The only way to truly delete something is to either overwrite the data with zeros or destroy the device on which it is stored.

[@ultralaggerREV1]

Britec, I have a good challenge for you. How to 100% delete Android apps that only allow you to disable them? I have YT Music on my phone set as disabled, but the app's APK still takes up space. How can I 100% wipe the app off my phone?

[@kastup_phuyal]

2nd method is best....................

[@hanswi336]

Nothing works !! 8 months ago I installed one of that crap toolkit stuff you've made a video about. It contains a subfolder called "Mount" with several subsub folders. With different methods I get a message containing "unvalid handle...". I tried it in safe mode, I tried with taking ownership, I tried unlocker - no way!

[@othername2428]

Brian what exactly are you saying at the start of every video? What you guys Would you guys Watch you guys Which you guys .....? Its really confusing, and even auto-captions can never make sense of what you're actually saying. Its a very thick accent sometimes 😅🤕

[@Cyba_IT]

I'm pretty sure he's saying, "What you guys" which is like the cockney geezer way of saying, "What's up guys" 😁

[@Britec09]

wotcher guys

[@wilkas]

Didn't work with cmd (file not found), but WinRar has worked.

[@Sphiinxs]

all these did was not respond or freeze once i tried them, what the hell!

[@darkheaven25]

after doing your first step ,no method is working..

[@josiahdatu4949]

winrar did the thing for me

[@theeraphatsunthornwit6266]

how windows is built this way... this is way too difficult

[@SherwanTahir]

Supe Shredded

[@highscore440]

none of the worked

[@johnsenchak1428]

But law enforcement can still get access to the file

[@METALFACEDOOM441]

I use the winrar method and it still didn't delete the file, sad face

[@hanatita4157]

bro... its still here 😠

[@Armonicyila]

WINRAR DIDNT EVEN WORK IM GONNA LOSE MY MIND I FOUND THE VIRUS AND I CANT DELETE IT

[@US_Joe]

👍👍👍

[@Britec09]

Cheers

[@StevenJimmy-iu5ln]

❤❤❤❤❤😮😮

[@QuikRay]

Just boot to linux and delete that windows file..solved.

[@ChrisKhaled83]

yeah, that works too

[@Britec09]

Yes, you can do that

[@peterschmidt9942]

Thats normally my go to method as well. Works 100% of the time.

[@-OGalaxyO-]

How? Is it the safe mode?

[@QuikRay]

@@-OGalaxyO- The only way to fix windows is with Linux.

[@-OGalaxyO-]

I got an error: Remove-Item : The request could not be performed because of an I/O device error. At line:1 char:1 + Remove-Item -Recurse -Force C:\ProgramData\LGHUB + ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ + CategoryInfo : WriteError: (C:\ProgramData\LGHUB:String) [Remove-Item], IOException + FullyQualifiedErrorId : RemoveItemIOError,Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.RemoveItemCommand Any solutions? because I've tried all your methods, but none worked.