At some point or the other, you might have come across an “Access Denied” or “Cannot delete file or folder” message when you try to delete a file.
This could be due to many factors; the file is in use by another application or it maybe even the source of a virus. While most of the time restarting the computer removes the lock on the file you are trying to delete, some of the files are more stubborn and are virtually permanently locked. That’s where Unlocker comes in.
Unlocker is a tiny (setup is only 230K), simple utility that lets you fix this problem. All you have to do is install the application with their simple, common ‘wizard like’ install and then if you have installed the application with its default settings you’ll find ‘Unlocker’ attached to a file’s context (right-click) menu.
If you need to ‘unlock’ and eventually delete your locked file first you have to right click the file, click ‘Unlocker’, you’ll then be shown a list of (or maybe just one) applications/processes that are using the file and all you have to do is click ‘unlock’ if its one process or ‘unlock all’ if it’s more than one file. Once the file has been successfully ‘unlocked’, the file can be deleted.
The application is totally safe (tested with Kaspersky and Ad Aware) and simple to install and use while some Anti-virus programs may flag the application as risk ware if you try to unlock a file which is in use by the Anti-virus program. (I’m yet to experience anything like that though)
The application has been ‘top rated’ and picked up by editors in many software portals as well which you can see on their home page. The publisher also provides a table with a comparison with other similar programs using a ‘tick/cross’ presentation to highlight the application’s features in the home page which you can see below:
Bear in mind that you should only unlock an application if you are sure you didn’t initiate something which is using the file as the application forces the process using it to free the file, if you don’t know why the application is ‘locked’ though I think is pretty safe as it’s probably locked by a virus or for some other not so critical reason.
One last thing, since you want be needing the application a lot you might not like the context menu ‘crowded’ because of the ‘Unlocker’ entry, so you can also configure the ‘Unlocker’ entry to be in the ‘send to’ part of the menu to keep things cleaner.
Having trouble with the application? Leave a comment.
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Great little app. I have had this problem hundreds of times over the years and have to resort to many different solutions. Thanks for the find.
cybrspin
Cybrspin’s last blog post..On September 5-7, 2008 Support Lori in her walk against cancer
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Thanks for the tip. That is such an annoying problem when it happens, I usually end up rebooting.
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glad it helped you out..thanks for commenting!
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Congrats for the Beautiful Posting!
Thank you for sharing this with us !!
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That is a handy little application. I’m glad I ran across this post. I’ve been needing something like this. Thanks.
Michelle’s last blog post..Computer Problem Troubleshooting
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Ye thanks for info. I have an annoying file that I need to get rid of.
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Working as a technical support analyst, I have run into problems like this many times. I really wish I would of know of this tool when I had the problem. I spent forever trying to figure it out!
Justin Wright’s last blog post..Avenue of the Giants
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i will download that one, thanks for this article that even a small error in computer notice by you.
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This looks great! I’m a computer consultant during the day so this will definitely come in handy. I bet its a whole lot faster than rebooting into safemode to delete a file!
Thanks!
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What I always to is to boot in text only mode. Which basically means your in DOS and then I delete it from there. But this is easier and probably works better.
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I have one file and i can’t delete, the error like this
“Cannot delete file: Cannot read from source file or disk”, any one can help me.
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you get that message because the file does not exist, if you restart your computer or refresh the explorer it should be deleted.
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First thanks for the answer, the file location is on other drive, not in my windows drive, so i try to reinstall my Windows, but that file is still exist, and i the icons still in my list file and the sizes is . This error happen when i use FathFTPZip and Visual Basic 6 to create a compressed file and save as to *.ZIP or *.RAR ext. but someday that process is failed and just create that file with “File” as ext not ZIP or RAR. Till now i can delete that file. Thanks
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“Till now i can delete that file.”
you mean you cannot delete the file? did you try unlocker from the post? install it, right click the file and click unlocker. its the perfect application for these kinds of issues, once you click unlocker you can see the programs holding the file, it would probably be explorer.exe, select it and click unlock, you should be able to delete the file afterwards.
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Thanks i forget to use unlocker, then i read your email and i try to use unlocker to delete that file, finally the file can be deleted.
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well, good to hear you solved the problem, what was the process preventing it from being deleted? Explorer?
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It’s great App. Small and easy to use. Download now
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Really neat tool! Thanks.
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I guess you can delete it by restarting your system and then delete it normally.
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works usually, however sometimes if the process affecting it runs on startup that can’t be done too, in any case it makes things easier than having to restart your computer all over again.
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this has happened to me a few times. i can’t stand it when i can’t delete something!
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Nice tool, i had this problem and because of it, i had to restart sometime and then able to delete some files and folders.
Thanks for letting us know.
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Great post and resource! i think this is much better than restarting the system.
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Nice informative post. Thanks for sharing this blog.
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