Cannot delete file off desktop

I have, excel files on my desktop (labled with numbers and letters) that cannot be moved, deleted or even opened. I have no idea what they are. How do I get rid of them??

In an open Finder window, click "Application," select"Utilities," choose "Terminal" and double-click the "Terminal" application to launch it.
Type "sudo rm –f " (with a space after the f and not including the quotes) to delete a file.
Drag and drop the files you wish to delete onto the open Terminal window. The files you drop on the Terminal window will be deleted. You can drag and drop multiple files and folders onto the Terminal window.
Note using this u cant undo the action.

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Re: Satellite L450D Cannot delete file from desktop

Hi all, I was veiwing some photos on yahoo email via firefox version 3 6 3 sent by my sister in Australia, when this file appeared on my desktop which I cannot delete.
The file is called Pez & Lisa (after my sister and brother in laws photograph) when i try to delete it I get the message "COULD NOT FIND THIS ITEM, THIS IS NO LONGER LOCATED IN C/USERS/PAUL/DESKTOP VERIFY THE ITEMS LOCATION AND TRY AGAIN"
The file when I right click on proprties reads the file is 0 bytes size.
It cannot be deleted in safe mode or moved or renamed or anything!
Any ideas??

Hi Guys, thanks for your replies, however, there is nothing in startup or task manager to delete!
I have tried downloading unlocker, but it doesnt do anything when I click on it!! Maybe it doesnt work with Windows 7.
I suppose I can leave it alone as its not doing anything! its not worth a reformat just do get rid of an icon.
Ho Hum.

For some reason I cannot delete files off my desktop without putting my password in and even when I do I still can't delete and I also can't put files on my desktop at all ! but when I look at my desktop it gives me a silver lock? Please help me?

when I go to find my desktop in Finder it shows a folder and a silver lock ? PLEASE HELP ME !

If the light will not turn on the TC is dead. No matter that the hard disk is running.. it should only run at start up or when it is accessed not constantly.. that means the board in the TC has failed. Apple do not repair them.. They will replace it under warranty or applecare.
If you have gone over the 12month warranty it will still be covered if you have applecare on any computer or an Apple TV. In fact the cost of the apple TV plus apple care is still cheaper than buying a new TC.. so it is a route some people are taking.. certainly depends.. in some places like Europe or Australia now, there is a recognition that statutory warranty must be longer on a product that is premium to the market. 12months is not good enough. Apple will sometimes listen.
They might be fixable but I do not know how.

Cannot delete file from desktop

I dragged this file to my desktop (off a flash drive or something) a few weeks ago and since then, it will NOT delete. Whenever I try and drag it to the trash it won't let me because it's locked.
Here's the file icon and the message I get: http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=2gt3dr5&s=3
Any help appreciated. Thanks.

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=25554

Cannot delete files from desktop

I run the latest version of Lion OS, on a MacBook Pro. All software is maintained and updated. I have a couple of files on my desktop, which cannot be deleted. They are BACK-UP files from Keynote and PowerPoint. The files cannot be moved (physically on the desktop, they stay put), and TRASH is not accepting them;
The item “Backup of Wholesale Sales Meeting Sea Island-powerpoint.key~1” can’t be moved to the Trash because it can’t be deleted.
Any idea on how to delete them permanently?
Thanks

Hello Denis Post1
You could remove it with the Terminal (Applications > Utilities).
Enter the following command (copy & paste) followed by your password, you will not see nothing, while entering it and then <enter>
sudo rm ~/Desktop/*
for the files you confirm with a simple "y" they will be deleted. If you want to keep some other files type "n"
hope this helps
marek

Cannot Delete file iCloud

I am having an issue with the New Late 2012 iMac and syncing numbers documents in the cloud.
1) I cannot sync a native document from the new iMac to the cloud via the Numbers Program. I can drag the document into the browser and update it that way
2) After doing this as a work around the document devlopes an error message making it unable to drag and drop 3 times seems to be the max allowed with this method
Spent an hour on the phone with Apple to no avail, I have tried
1) Deleteing icloud off all my devices Mini, Iphone, Ipad macbook air and iMac.
2) Yes I have made sure Docs in the cloud is turned on on all devices and the right icloud account is signed in
3) rebooted everything a few times
4) created another profile on the IMac which is able to update via the Native Numbers program and not the Browser as I was doing on profile 1.
The problem seems to be this file which is gray'd out and I cannot delete it off any device, the date that this started happening is the creation date of this document, so process of elimination I want to delete this document to see if this is corrupting profile 1 and disabling my ability to upload files via the native Numbers program.
Anyone have a document that is in the constant update state on icloud that cannot delete it with a new Mac? Its a very frustrating problem because I use the mac as the mother ship to handle presentations and spread sheets and its not pushing out what I do on it and its brand new..Considering doing a time machine restore on the new profile to see if that works..Anyone have some more thoughts, I have tried all the simple fixes thanks to Apple and a very nice female voice named Kerry.

This deeper than that. I created another account on the same iMac and it works in Harmony with my other devices and Documents in the cloud. I can only imagine the icloud account is somehow corrupted (I am on my macbook not iMac at the moment). There have been no updates to the Calendar, Contacts or Documents since early January on that account. I have spent 1hr on the phone with support and they were baffled as well. Only thing I can gove as insight to the problem is this, I was on the Mac Mini which was backed up on Time Machine. about 4 or 5 months ago I had to completley restore the Mac Mini becasue of the never ending circle on the load screen. The Backup failed to work it kept loading the issue and 4 or 5 times the circle of death kept coming up I would subsequently wipe the Mini and go further back in the back up until I go a copy that worked. I then loaded the Time Mache back up into my NEW iMac and wnet from there. It took about a month for this problem I am detailing above to start happening. It maybe a corrupt file loaded from the backup into the new iMac causing this problem. Best answer I can think of on my own???

Cannot delete file Windows2Local/Components/{multiple}.settings

Every time I shutdown JSE it shows a couple of ugly messages saying:
"Cannot delete file Windows2Local/Components/classes.settings in C:\Documents and Settings\Joost\.jstudio\Ent8\config"
"Cannot delete file Windows2Local/Components/sources.settings in C:\Documents and Settings\Joost\.jstudio\Ent8\config"
"Cannot delete file Windows2Local/Components/watches.settings in C:\Documents and Settings\Joost\.jstudio\Ent8\config"
"Cannot delete file Windows2Local/Components/properties.settings in C:\Documents and Settings\Joost\.jstudio\Ent8\config"
"Cannot delete file Windows2Local/Components/designpattern.settings in C:\Documents and Settings\Joost\.jstudio\Ent8\config"
"Cannot delete file Windows2Local/Components/threads.settings in C:\Documents and Settings\Joost\.jstudio\Ent8\config"
Assuming that JSE had some problems to access my profile (oh, how I *hate* Windows...) I wanted to change the JSE working directory to C:\Projects\Java Studio Enterprise, but I can't find the place within the Tools|Options where I can set that. Help!
Regards,
Joost

Thanks for the reply. I added the -userdir option, and now it complains:
"Cannot delete file Windows2Local/Components/ComponentPalette.settings" in C:\Projects\Java Studio Enterprise\config"
"Cannot delete file Windows2Local/Components/CollaborationExplorer.settings" in C:\Projects\Java Studio Enterprise\config"
Hmmm, it seems to me that - although the number of error messages has been reduced - JSE is still not very happy about something. It would be nice if it was a bit more precise in its problem description.
Regards,
Joost

Cannot delete files from my ipod shuffle!!!

I am new to using an ipod and i cannot delete files from my ipod, on itunes, it only shows the license agreement where the ipod files are supposed to be and no matter how many times i uninstall and reinstall itunes and agree to the license agreement i can't access anything else. can anyone help me at all i feel like a complete idiot!

Pressing return will get past this screen as there is a button at the bottom right of iTunes which you likely cannot see.
Set your screen resolution to at least 1024x768 to see this button.

How to delete files off of my hard drive if my computer won't boot up.

So, my hard drive is filled to capacity on my macbook air and the computer flashes a Message stating "Your startup disk is full." and from there it can't even finish booting up. Is there a way to delete files off the hard drive by using an external startup drive? Terminal? I have an external WD Passport hard drive that I've partitioned with one partition being a startup disk of with OS X 10.6.8. At this point the people at the store I bought it are only offering to wipe the hard drive and reinstall the operating system. I'd hate to lose all my pics and movies. Any suggestions?

If you have another Mac, you can plug it into your Mac, boot from that and try to access your internal hard drive from there and start dragging things off/emptying the trash. That is the only thing I can think of. If that does not work, you will have to erase.
Once you get this taken care of, remember: you should never fill your hard drive completely; the OS needs room to function properly and that would be an absolute minimum of 10 - 15 GB (more is much better) and, you should always have a current backup of everything. So, buy an external hard drive so you can make a backup as soon as you get the OS reinstalled.

Deleting Files off NTFS HDD problem

Good Day,
I have installed paragon on the mac to read and write on NTFS drives.. however, i'm having touble deleting files off my usb drive... when i delete, it goes to trash... then when i try to empty trash, it does not empty fully...
when i try to go to windows to delete the hidden .trash foler... it does not allow as well... please help

This is a problem with NTFS and Windows.
Basically OS X creates a lot of metadata for files/folders and is why the Finder works and looks the way it does.
The problem is OS X being unix hides most of these files using the '.' prefix. While this has no implication on the file system itself ie. NTFS has no problem with such naming conventions, Windows does.
There isn't a Windows API yet created that will allow for the creation of files with '.' prefixes. Basically if you are in a Windows environment, creating such files is impossible.
So why is this problematic, Windows doesn't know what to do when it encounters such files and it spits the dummy.
Paragon seems to be a similar implentation of the Windows API. You can forcefuly delete files on a Windows machine with the command line using some obscure -option when deleting.
Why not try MacFUSE with NTFS-3G it works great... just don't try and use it for anything tasking like, video editing. NTFS running on MacFUSE just isn't efficient enough.
Cheers,
Hubert

Admin suddenly cannot delete files without entering password?

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I cannot delete music off my phone... I have gone to settings and the cloud stuff is gone. but when I try to swipe left to right or right to left to delete songs I want off my phone, it just plays the song!!!! How do I seriously delete music now?

I cannot delete music off my phone... I have gone to settings and the cloud stuff is gone. but when I try to swipe left to right or right to left to delete songs I want off my phone, it just plays the song!!!! How do I seriously delete music now??

Figured it out.

Cannot delete file from TC, says it is in use.

Im trying to delete a couple of .mpv files from my time capsule... but everytime I try to do it... it says the file(s) is/are in use... Ive done quite a bit of searching around on the net and cannot find anything to help me get these 2 files off my TC...
Ive found stuff that would help me if they were on my iMac itself... but nothing in regards to TC... please help =)
Cheers in advance!!

Figured it out... I used the terminal application/utility and was able to get the files off of my time capsule...

Cannot delete files after emailing them

Ever since I upgraded to Snow Leopard I cannot empty the trash if there is a file that I have added as an attachment in an email if Mail is still open. It will say the file is in use and I either have to quit Mail or Secure Empty Trash. This is really annoying. Anyone know of a fix? The file shouldn't be in use once it is sent in Mail. This never happened in previous versions of OSX. Also, if I have sent a file as an attachment I cannot save over it in the originating program because it is in use.

No, this is only for Mail. As soon as I add a file as an attachment then I cannot delete it without quitting mail or secure empty the trash. It isn't a data loss deterrent because you get that message making sure you want to delete it but when I say yes then it says the file is in use.
By the way, I shut off Time Machine for a day and then tried to delete a new file that I created after Time Machine was shut off that I added as an attachment to Mail and the same problem occurs. All other files that I do not add as an attachment in Mail I can delete with no problems.

Cannot delete files from TC because they are in use?

Hi all, I have converted (SmartConverter) some avi files to my ITunes, now I am trying to remove/delete the old avi files from my Time Capsule but my Imac informes me that this is not possible because the avi files are in use. The last is not the case, at least no by me, and even after a re start I am getting the same messages. even avi files that are not converted are giving me troubles. Before the system says they are in use I am getting a message saying that the files cannot be moved to the bin. I have looked on the net for an solution but without any real luck. I hope somebody can assist me with this. Thanks Prond.

Figured it out... I used the terminal application/utility and was able to get the files off of my time capsule...

Cannot delete file off desktop

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