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MA2011 Author

Level 1

5 points

Cannot delete phantom files which just appeared on desktop - no extensions

Two files have appeared on my desktop. 16E7C000 and 24FD5200. The icons look like a little excel or keynote file with a green top bar. I cannot move them anywhere else on the desktop, Finder cannot find them and when trying to delete or move them to trash - a message comes up saying "The item "24FD5200" can't be moved to the Trash because it can't be deleted.

Does anyone know what they are and what I can do to get rid of them? Thank you!

Macbook, Mac OS X (10.6.4)

Posted on Jan 23, 2011 6:43 PM

86 replies

hv27

Level 1

8 points

Jan 16, 2013 2:01 PM in response to MA2011

Relaunching the finder works for me when I save the files to my desktop. When I save my files to the documents folder the problem does not exist.

jbodford

Level 1

1 points

Jan 21, 2013 9:25 PM in response to mberardinelli

The sudo rm -f command worked for me!

Jan 29, 2013 9:16 AM in response to MA2011

The disk permissions repair seemed to work for me too (so far!). On a lighter note, it definitely must be Microsoft's fault, since it also happens with Preview, OpenOffice Spreadsheet, and Openoffice Document files. Microsoft's dev team must have really gotten on board with the opensource community lately! Couldn't possibly be an issue with the way Lion (or previous versions) manages file permissions, eh? Hehe. Always cracks me up. The files are no longer appearing on the desktop in any case.

Mar 4, 2013 5:22 PM in response to chrisfromames

Force Quit... select Finder => problem solved. Thanks for the simple advice Chrisfromames!

kelz

Level 1

0 points

Oct 27, 2013 11:04 PM in response to MA2011

Happened to me and force quitting Finder also solved the problem for me. Bring up Finder, click the Apple in the top left, press shift (notice that "Force Quit" menu option changed to "Force Quit Finder"), click it, then restart Finder. Should be off the desktop now. 🙂

Dec 19, 2013 6:17 AM in response to chrisfromames

Thanks, relaunching the Finder worked for me using Force Quit.

OSX 10.7.5, Excel 2011.

kgcobb

Level 1

0 points

Mar 13, 2014 8:36 AM in response to MA2011

Force-quit and restart the finder. No need to go into Terminal etc. That what works for me.

quits

Level 1

9 points

Mar 26, 2014 7:40 PM in response to mberardinelli

Thanks mbernardinelli, I had the same and apparently it's gone.

Nov 7, 2014 8:28 AM in response to quits

Yes, indeed! Force quitting Finder works.

GrMagi

Level 1

0 points

Dec 20, 2014 12:11 PM in response to mberardinelli

Thanks - I was having trouble with phantom files showing up in my downloads folder. Repairing disk permissions cleared up the problem on my MacBook Pro.

Jun 2, 2015 11:49 AM in response to chrisfromames

Force quitting Finder cleared them for me too.

Cannot delete phantom files which just appeared on desktop - no extensions