When I move a folder from location A to B by dragging and dropping in Finder, I often find that the folder has been fully copied to B but only partially removed from A.
I receive the message "The item “FOLDER NAME” was copied, but the original could not be deleted."
Why does this happen?
MacBook Air 13″, macOS 15.0
What file systems are on the source & destination drives?
Are these regular data drives? Or does the source drive have an installation of macOS or is a Time Machine backup drive?
If the source drive is a regular data drive using either the APFS file system or MacOS Extended file system, then make "Get Info" on the source drive and be sure "Ignore Ownership" is checked. Do not do this if the drive has macOS installed on it or is a TM drive.
If you don’t have permission to use files on a Mac disk - Apple Support
FYI, I also completely agree with @WheelieNick regarding "copying & deleting" versus "moving" since I have personally seen files disappear if the "move" operation fails and I have seen a number of posts on this forum as well where this has occurred to users. After it happens to you one time, you will never trust "moving" files again.
It is better to copy files first, and after that delete them manually. This will stop this behavior to happen, and is more safe, because when the move fails but the deletion is successful, you lose the file involved.
Where is the source folder located? There are some areas within the file system where you do not have permissions to modify items.
The source and destination are on separate external drives.
I still want to know why this error occurs.
I prefer moving files because created/modified times are not well preserved when copying.
Exfat on both drives. Regular data consisting of documents, photos, videos, etc.
I don't see any permissions issues. I can delete the source files without issue.
Under what circumstances have you seen move fail, yet the original file was deleted?
I've never had this scenario before.
I have seen files that were properly moved, but the original not deleted.
When I move a folder, I receive a message that the original could not be deleted.
