Impossible to delete a file

Is there any file or folder called "a" without quotes on your desktop?

Dismount any drives, flash drives, usb sticks, optical discs by dragging their icons to the trash.
Remove any external connected drives once their icons disappear
Quit all open pograms so nothing but Finder appears in command-tab.
Click once on the "a" folder.
Get info and change Ownership and Permissions.
Make sure you have access and apply to all enclosed items.
Go to Applications-> Utilities -> Disk Utility
Select First Aid and click Repair Permissions.
Reboot holding the shift key.
Drag to trash.
Force empty trash.

Message was edited by: a brody

This is going to sound very simplistic, but what the heck. I occasionally get files from a client that have forward slashes in their names. I simply rename the file to get rid of any / symbols. Will the OS allow you to rename the file and then delete it?

Might want to try this one again. I didn't account for the fact the file you're trying to delete is within a folder named 'a' in the trash. This may work.

rm -f ~/.Trash/a/"Thumbs.db/encryptable"

A trick that worked well in OS 9 and earlier may also get rid of it.

Take the folder back out of the trash. Create a new folder, doesn't matter what you name it, and put the folder 'a' within the new folder.

Create another new folder named 'a' and drag it into the new folder. The OS will ask you if you want to replace the folder named 'a' that already exists. Click Replace.

What a stubborn thing!

Did you try this Terminal command with the folder 'a' placed back in the trash?

rm -f ~/.Trash/a/"Thumbs.db/encryptable"

Have you tried my suggested path:

Dismount any drives, flash drives, usb sticks, optical discs by dragging their icons to the trash.
Remove any external connected drives once their icons disappear
Quit all open pograms so nothing but Finder appears in command-tab.
Click once on the "a" folder.
Get info and change Ownership and Permissions.
Make sure you have access and apply to all enclosed items.
Go to Applications-> Utilities -> Disk Utility
Select First Aid and click Repair Permissions.
Reboot holding the shift key.
Drag to trash.
Force empty trash.

The other option would be to use my software*:

http://www.macmaps.com/software.html

- * Links to my pages may give me compensation.

Not sure it would help any, but can you rename the file while in Safe Mode?

I remember a couple of years ago someone had copied a song by ABBA from a Windows computer to their Mac, and the file contained a character that was OK in Windows, but was illegal on a Mac, with both the Mac OS and the underlying UNIX system unable to cope with the character. The result was that there was no way in either the Finder or the Terminal to rename or delete the file. After going thru pretty much everything discussed here the final result was.....the file remained. We concluded the only thing that would get rid of the silly thing was to reformat the drive, and recommended that the file just be put in a folder somewhere unobtrusive and ignored.

But one other thought occurs to me: could you use Terminal, or Command drag in the Finder, to MOVE the file from your drive to some other drive, such as an empty USB drive, then reformat that?
Francine


Francine
Schwieder

It's possible the immutable flag is set. See this article on the subject.

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=607591&#607591

In short, try entering this command in the Terminal:

sudo chflags -R nouchg ~/.Trash/a/"Thumbs.db/encryptable"

The sudo command will ask for your admin password before trying to execute the rest of the string. Then try emptying the trash.

Also from the article, if that doesn't work. Enter this in the Terminal:

ls -aolR .Trash

If however you see a line like:
d--------- 2 root wheel schg 68 Oct 19 2001 ????????????HFS+ Private Data

then the System Immutable flag is set, and you cannot deal with this from the Terminal, even with root privileges. You must instead use single-user mode to change that flag...

See the links in Michael Conniff's article I linked to above see what to do in Safe Mode if the schg flag shows up in a listing.