I have an external hard drive that I use with my Mac. Recently, I tried to delete a folder from the hard drive, but I got an error message saying that the folder could not be deleted. The folder is still there, and I can’t figure out how to delete it.
Any ideas?
If you’re a Mac user, you may have come across the problem of trying to delete a folder from your external hard drive and getting an error message that says the folder can’t be deleted. There are a few possible reasons for this, but fortunately there are also a few possible solutions.
One reason you might not be able to delete a folder from your external hard drive is that the folder contains items that are in use by another application.
If this is the case, try quitting all open applications and then trying to delete the folder again.
Another possibility is that the external hard drive is set to Read Only mode. To check this, go to the Finder and select the external hard drive in question.
Then, in the Finder’s menu bar, click on File and choose Get Info (or press Command+I). In the window that opens up, look for the section labeled “General” and see if there’s a checkmark next to “Locked.” If so, simply uncheck that box and try deleting the folder again.
If neither of those solutions works, it’s possible that there’s something wrong with how your external hard drive is formatted. In this case, you’ll need to reformat it using Disk Utility in order to be able to delete folders from it. Of course, this will erase everything on yourexternal hard drive so make sure you have backups of any important files before proceeding!
Credit: www.nytimes.com
Can’T Delete a Folder from External Hard Drive?
If you’re trying to delete a folder from your external hard drive and it’s not working, there are a few possible explanations.
The most likely explanation is that the folder is currently in use by another program. If that’s the case, you’ll need to close the program that’s using the folder before you can delete it.
Alternatively, it’s possible that the folder is empty but has been set to read-only. In that case, you can try changing the permissions on the folder to allow deletion.
Finally, if none of those work, it’s possible that there’s a problem with your external hard drive itself.
In that case, you may need to reformat the drive or contact the manufacturer for assistance.
How Do You Delete Files from an External Hard Drive on a Mac?
When you delete a file from an external hard drive on your Mac, it is not permanently deleted until the Trash is emptied. This means that the file still exists on the drive and takes up space, even though you can no longer see it in the Finder. If you want to permanently delete a file from your external hard drive, you must first move it to the Trash and then empty the Trash.
Here’s how to do this:
1. Open Finder and navigate to the external hard drive.
2. Locate the file or files you want to delete and select them by clicking on them once (or use the keyboard shortcut Command + A to select all files).
3. Right-click (or Control + click) on one of the selected files and choose Move To Trash from the menu that appears. Alternatively, you can drag-and-drop the selected files into the Trash icon in your Dock.
4. Once the files have been moved to trash, open up trash by clicking on its icon in your Dock and then selecting Empty Trash from the File menu at top left of your screen (or use the keyboard shortcut Shift + Command + Delete).
This will permanently delete all of the files in trash, including any that were on your external hard drive.
How Do I Delete a Folder That Won’t Delete Mac?
If you’re having trouble deleting a folder on your Mac, there are a few things you can try.
First, make sure that the folder is empty. If it’s not, delete the files inside of it and then try again.
If the folder is empty and you’re still having trouble, try restarting your computer. Sometimes this can help clear up any issues that are preventing the folder from being deleted.
If restarting doesn’t work, you can try using the Terminal to delete the folder.
To do this, open the Terminal and type in “rm -r” followed by the path to the folder you want to delete. For example, if the folder is located in your Documents directory, you would type “rm -r /Documents/myfolder”. Press Enter and then type in your password when prompted.
The folder should now be deleted.
If you’re still having trouble deleting the folder, it’s possible that it’s being protected by SIP (System Integrity Protection). This feature was introduced in macOS Sierra and prevents certain folders from being modified or deleted to help protect your system from malicious software.
To disable SIP temporarily so that you can delete the protected folder, follow these steps:
1) Reboot your Mac into Recovery Mode by holding down Command+R while it’s booting up.
2) When you see the Apple logo appear on screen, release Command+R and wait for macOS Utilities to appear.
3) Select Terminal from the Utilities menu and then enter “csrutil disable” at the prompt.
How Do You Force Delete a Folder That Won’t Delete?
If you’ve ever tried to delete a file or folder in Windows and gotten an error message saying it couldn’t be deleted, you know how frustrating that can be. Usually, restarting your computer will fix the problem, but sometimes you may need to take more drastic measures. Here’s how to force delete a file or folder in Windows 10.
First, try restarting your computer. If that doesn’t work, open the Command Prompt and use the del or rmdir command to delete the file or folder. For example, if you’re trying to delete a file named “MyFile,” you would type del MyFile at the prompt.
If you’re trying to delete a folder named “MyFolder,” you would type rmdir MyFolder . Be sure to include the quotation marks if the file or folder name contains spaces.
If those commands don’t work, it’s likely that the file or folder is being used by another program and can’t be deleted.
To see what processes are currently running on your system and using that file or folder, open Task Manager (press Ctrl+Shift+Esc on your keyboard) and click on the Processes tab. Then, click on View > Select Columns and check off PID (Process Identifier). Now look for any process that has a lock icon next to it and is using the file or folder you want to delete—it’s likely that this is what’s preventing you from deleting it.
Right-click on this process and select End Process Tree from the menu that appears; when prompted, confirm that you want to end all processes associated with this one so that they’re no longer running and taking up resources on your system. Finally, try deleting the file again—it should now work without any problems!
How to Delete files documents from External Harddrive on Mac
Cannot Delete Files from External Hard Drive Ubuntu
If you’re using Ubuntu and you can’t delete files from your external hard drive, there are a few possible explanations. First, it’s possible that the file permissions on the drive are set incorrectly. To check this, open a terminal window and type “ls -l /media/username/external_drive” (replacing “username” with your actual username).
This will show you a list of all the files on the drive, along with their permissions. If any of the files have permissions that don’t allow you to delete them, you’ll need to change those permissions before you can delete the files.
Another possibility is that the drive is mounted in read-only mode.
To check this, open a terminal window and type “mount | grep /media/username/external_drive” (again replacing “username” with your actual username). This will show you all the mounts on your system, including any external drives. If “/media/username/external_drive” is listed as being in read-only mode, then that’s your problem.
You can either unmount and remount the drive in read-write mode (using the “umount” and “mount” commands), or you can edit your fstab file to permanently mount the drive in read-write mode.
If neither of these solutions works for you, then it’s possible that there’s something wrong with the filesystem on your external hard drive. In this case, you’ll need to use a utility like fsck to repair the filesystem before you’ll be able to delete any files from it.
Conclusion
If you’re a Mac user, you may have come across a file or folder that you can’t delete. Whether it’s because the file is locked, in use, or you don’t have the necessary permissions, trying to delete certain folders from your external hard drive can be frustrating. Luckily, there are a few different ways to force-delete these stubborn files.
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If restarting doesn’t work, you can try using the Terminal to delete the folder. To do this, open the Terminal and type in rm -r followed by the path to the folder you want to delete. For example, if the folder is located in your Documents directory, you would type rm -r /Documents/myfolder. Press Enter and then type in your password when prompted. The folder should now be deleted. If you’re still having trouble deleting the folder, it’s possible that it’s being protected by SIP (System Integrity Protection). This feature was introduced in macOS Sierra and prevents certain folders from being modified or deleted to help protect your system from malicious software. To disable SIP temporarily so that you can delete the protected folder, follow these steps: 1) Reboot your Mac into Recovery Mode by holding down Command+R while it’s booting up. 2) When you see the Apple logo appear on screen, release Command+R and wait for macOS Utilities to appear. 3) Select Terminal from the Utilities menu and then enter csrutil disable at the prompt. Press Enter and then reboot your computer normally when prompted” } } ,{“@type”: “Question”, “name”: “How Do You Force Delete a Folder That Won’t Delete? “, “acceptedAnswer”: { “@type”: “Answer”, “text”: ” If you’ve ever tried to delete a file or folder in Windows and gotten an error message saying it couldn’t be deleted, you know how frustrating that can be. Usually, restarting your computer will fix the problem, but sometimes you may need to take more drastic measures. Here’s how to force delete a file or folder in Windows 10. First, try restarting your computer. 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