The operation can’t be completed because the item “” is in use.

I figured it out in my case (with the QNAP).

It had nothing to do with the QNAP and the files were not yet in the Trash (deleting from the QNAP is immediately permanent and bypasses the Trash).

Anyway, the underlying cause was that the Finder was locking the files open while trying to "Show icon preview" for certain file types. The result was that some file types would never get locked, because the preview would be quickly and correctly created. Other file types, usually .MKV video files, would get locked while the Finder would attempt to create the preview icon. Eventually, the Finder would stop trying and the file would become unlocked on its own.

So, if I change the View Options for just the folder/share in question and uncheck the "Show icon preview," then they are all immediately deletable from the Finder.

They were always deletable from Terminal using rm.

This would also explain why changing the filename extension would work--it would tell the Finder to use some other program to build the icon preview, and that program, whatever it is, would work faster.

I have the same problem constantly when trying to copy files to my SMB share. Its very annoying. Found a few more people having the same issue here:

http://www.tonymacx86.com/general-help/115843-operation-can-t-completed-because- item-xxx-use.html

But thats all I can really find at the moment.

I would also like to mention that this ONLY happens when using FInder. If I copy the file via Terminal it doesnt have problems.

There is a way without having to reboot. I defeated the stupid undocumented feature by changing the name slightly of the file......add a 1 or a 2 or something to the filename. I have then found I can copy the file to my SMB disk. Once copied I remove the added digit.

Sometimes it doesn't work......in which case I change the file name back again and then it does work. It seems crazy that one has to do this......

A very simple solution that worked for me was first rebooting, dragging the offending file from Trash to the desktop (mine was a .doc file). I then changed the extension (from myfile.doc to myfile.pdf), dragged it back to Trash, and I could then empty Trash permanently.

Well I was wondering if Apple was going to bother fixing it's botched SMB implementation in Yosemite. So no is the answer.

Copying files from the mac to QNAP NAS results in an epic fail. The usual "Cannot copy as file is in use" but Finder hangs and the Mac becomes unresponsive. Have just had to do multiple hard reboots. Windows PC, no problem as usual. Mac, sluggish and buggy when browsing network files.

(Turning off "icon preview" as usual makes no difference)

Solution: specifically switch to AFP, all problems go away... Thanks Apple... any chance of ever getting this sorted?

Reboot and try again.

Sometimes if you open the file with a app this would happen, although if the app was quit completely but OS X would still protect the file. It happened to me for many times. But after a reboot it can be deleted. There's no need to worry about that.

Jimmy

Another way I've found to get around this without rebooting is to simply open up Terminal.

And use `rm -rf ~/Desktop/my_filename.jpg` or whatever your file name is.

My issue was with Copying so I just did `cp -R ~/Desktop/my_files* /Volumes/Media/Files/` to copy them and it didn't throw errors.

To be clearer...

rm -rf means to remove the file with extreme prejudice. tread carefully.

I have been successfull with the muCommander (portable version). File from trash deleted with no problem.

I'm seeing exactly the same problem with deleting a file from a QNAP TS-469 Pro NAS SMB share with 10.8.5's Finder--it says the deletion can't be completed because the file is in use. The file never gets moved to the trash nor is deleted due to the error.

But deletion from Terminal works fine, like so:

rm /Volumes/ShareName/FileName.Ext

No fancy permissions changes, nor aggressive rm -f, no sudo or su to gain root power. A simple rm from the Terminal just works.

This happens randomly with some files on the NAS, which are all created by the same process but sometimes are deletable and sometimes aren't. If a file presents the error, it remains undeletable no matter how many reboots occur to either the NAS or the Mac. Finder just won't delete the file, and Terminal always works.

Windows machines on the same network have no trouble deleting the files that the Mac has trouble deleting.

Weird, huh? This seemed to start happening with some update to 10.8 a while ago, but I am not sure when exactly. If I had a 10.7 or 10.9 machine, I would test with those to diagnose the problem.

Unchecking "Show icon preview" in Finder's "View Options" worked like a champ! Good finding man!!

This issue has been bothering me for quite a while.

I even tried this trick unchecking the "Show icon preview", but it didn't help me.

Really annoying problem when I wanted to transfer multiple files to my NAS.

Often I had to transfer the files in smaller batches, and that wasn't even the solution sometimes.

My backup plan was to connect to the NAS by FTP to transfer the files.

But after the latest Maverick update 10.9.5, where SMB stability was addressed the issue seems solved :-D

I haven't had this dialogue box since 18th of September. I had it several times a day before the osx update.

This problem is around for a long time. As far as I know it is in multiple OS-X versions. I had it, then for a long time no problem but since 2 days the bug turned up again 😟

Turning off icon preview sometimes helps. Rebooting helps but not for a long time (and I also find it silly to have to reboot so I can just copy some file to a network share).

I now copy files using ftp in Terminal, works 100%

In a thread on Macrumors, some user suggest to put the file(s) in a folder and then copy that folder. Going to try that next time.

Rebooting to fix this problem is unacceptable. I shouldn't have to do that just to copy a file to a network share, nor should I have to use a terminal command. Sure. I am going to ask my wife to use the terminal to copy file to/from the share that I would like her to use. That'll grow adoption for that idea like crazy... OS X just gets worse and worse with every release.