Q: Cannot delete .cleverfiles folder

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For what it's worth, this forum section covers older iMacs, those made between 1998 and 2005. If yours is newer were can eitehr get you to the current iMac forums or the one for your Mac OS version.

Hi! There is a solution for your problem! You are going to have to boot into a live Linux environment. You'll need a blank DVD and about one gigabyte of space. First you'll need to download the PPC version of Ubuntu 12.04 here : cdimage.ubuntu.com/releases/12.04/release/

The next thing you'll need to do is insert your blank DVD into your Mac. Now, open Disk Utility. You will need to burn the Ubuntu file to the DVD. Select your DVD and click Burn at the top of the window. Select your image and let it go.

Once that is done, shut down the Mac. Now hold down the left option/alt key a and turn your Mac back on. Wait for it to load, and pick the disk with the penguin on it. Let that go for a minute and a black screen will come up with some white text. Just hit enter, and leave it for quite some time, so it can load.

After it has loaded, look at the left taskbar/dock. Click the file folder once. Under Devices, click Mac HDD (or whatever yours is called). Now just find your files you want to delete, and delete them. When you're done, just turn off your Mac using the power button. Turn your Mac back on normally, and you'll see the file is gone.

The key to this is to NOT install Ubuntu, because that would overwrite your Mac installation!

Well it's not letting me edit my first reply, so let me say it here. You'll have to right click on your Mac HDD and click get info and change permissions so that Others can read/write. Make sure you click Apply to enclosed items. You should do the same for the surviving folder. Get info, change permissions, apply to enclosed items.

What have you tired.

You do not see the need to run Ubuntu.  This is a windows solution.

To try:

-- run from your recovery partition.

-- run from your statup cd/dvd.  Look into Utilities or applications pull down.

-- You would get the same thing by booting up in single user mode.

Some hints about terminal and single user mode.

Try from terminal.  /Applications/Utilities/Terminal

Try single use mode

This page will tell you how to get into single user mode.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1492

Basically, you hold down the command + s key then  powering on your machine. The command key has a little apple symbol on the lower left. It is between the alt/option key and the space bar. On a PC keyboard, it will be the windows key, I think.

You can delete of things from Darwin but  you must be very careful.  Use the rm command to delete a file.  The file is permanently deleted.

Here is an overview of the terminal commands.  Lets assume that your account has a short user name of mac.
Macintosh-HD -> Applications -> Utilities -> Terminal
#What is my short user name?  Type the whoami command.
mac $ whoami
mac
mac $
#How to list all of your disks.
# The ls command is for list
mac $ ls /Volumes/
Audio CD       Macintosh-HD   Spotless       Tiger-ext
mac $
  # Let's say your flash drive is named Spotless

# cd is change directory
mac $ cd /Volumes/Spotless
# pwd is Print Working Directory. A directory is the Unix name for a folder.  You are always in a directory.
mac $ pwd
/Volumes/Spotless
mac $
  # The ls command is for list
# l is long
# F is type of file where / is directory.  For directories, the slash is pasted to the end of the name. 
mac $ ls -lF
total 134704
-rw-r--r--     1 mac  staff     64560 Mar  3  2009 A-picture-of-Youpi-key.png
drwxr-xr-x    83 mac  staff      2822 Nov  7 14:52 Applescript files/
drwxrwxrwx    12 mac  staff       408 Dec 13  2008 Christmas Cards/
drwxr-xr-x     9 mac  staff       306 Dec 21 17:39 Christmas Cards 2009/
... trimmed ... What does all this mean?

drwxrwxrwx

d = directory
r = read
w = write
x = executeable program

drwxrwxrwx
|| &nbsp|&nbsp |
||  |   all other users not in first two types
||  | 
||  group
||
|owner
| 
What type of entry is this? d = directory, - = file, etc. 

Every Unix resource: files, folders, etc has an owner, group, other 
A Unix resource has one owner.
A Unix resource has one group.  A group contains a list of users.

To gain access to a file, you can be the owner, in the group, or not the owner and not in the group hence you end up as other. The owner, group, or other  has read, write, or execute permissions.

# l is long
# a is all to show hidden files & folders
mac $ ls -lFa
total 134736
drwxr-xr-x    41 mac   staff      1496 Dec 22 17:11 .
drwxrwxrwt     8 root  admin       272 Dec 24 13:55 ..
-rwxrwxrwx     1 mac   staff     15364 Dec 23 12:52 .DS_Store*
drwx------     4 mac   staff       136 Jan 22  2009 .Spotlight-V100
drwxrwxrwt     5 mac   staff       170 Sep 14 16:36 .TemporaryItems
d-wx-wx-wx     4 mac   staff       136 Dec 31  1969 .Trashes
-rw-r--r--     1 mac  staff     64560 Mar  3  2009 A-picture-of-Youpi-key.png
drwxr-xr-x    83 mac   staff      2822 Nov  7 14:52 Applescript files
drwxrwxrwx    12 mac   staff       408 Dec 13  2008 Christmas Cards
drwxr-xr-x     9 mac   staff       306 Dec 21 17:39 Christmas Cards 2009
... trimmed ...
# mv is move or rename
mv -i the-name the-new-name

# You can just rename the file back to what it was with mv command.
mv -i old-name new-name

Here is what these commands mean:
cd is change directory
pwd is a print working directory
ls is list
sudo is Super user do
mv is move or rename

For cryptic comments, you can always uses the manual command which is man. For example:
man mv

# Type the letter q to quit.
In case you have spaces in your filenames or directories, you need to escape them. See examples:

mac $ ls -l ~/"see it"
-rw-r--r-- 1 mac staff 3171 Oct 26 23:38 /Users/mac/see it
mac $
mac $ cd /Users/mac/Desktop/ttt\ html\ copy/

Do you know about tabbing? Type in a few letters of a name then press the tab key. The computer will type out the rest of the name if it is unique.

Press the up arrow key to see the previous command(s).

To edit a command, use the left arrow key to more left and the right arrow key to move right.  Use the delete key to delete the key to the left.  Type a letter to insert.

history to see many previous commands.

mac $ history

    1  pwd

    2  man ls

    3  history

You may copy then paste from this list.

----------------------

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2692161&tstart=0 

Robert

my user name is mac.

Hear is how to list all users on your computer. The l  is the  lower case L:
mac $ ls /Users
Deleted Users  audio          mac

here is how I  deleted a file from my trash can.

mac $ cd /Users/mac
mac $ pwd
/Users/mac
mac $ cd .Trash
mac $ pwd
/Users/mac/.Trash
mac $ ls -alh
total 217120
drwx------  140 mac  staff        4K Feb 15 16:33 ./
drwxr-xr-x  113 mac  staff        3K Feb 14 17:53 ../
-rw-------    1 mac  staff        21K Feb 13 23:36 .DS_Store
-rw-r--r--    1 mac  staff        3K Feb 12 23:24 .bash-backup-copy-initial-dot-copy.html
-rw-r--r--    1 mac  staff        1K Feb 12 23:24 Differentiate Between Models  23-28-21.html
...

--------------------------  delete the file youpi_key.html  --------------

mac $ rm -i youpi_key.html
remove youpi_key.html? y
mac $

Deleting files with special characters
The terminal command processor allows you to use the wildcard character question mark (?) to substitute for any actual character.  This is one way of deleting files with special characters in them.  Use the wildcard character question mark (?)  in place of the special character.    Add to the option -i  to the remove command to be prompted  before the deletion.

mac $ ls
aa"hi  aaahi
mac $ rm -i aa?hi
remove aa"hi? y
remove aaahi? n
mac $

--------------------------

ls -aolRe /Users/mac/Desktop/add_Group.html
-rw-r--r-- 1 mac staff - 987 Feb 8 22:18 /Users/mac/Desktop/add_Group.html

--------------------------
Here is one way to delete a directory.
mac $ mkdir new
mac $ cd new
mac $ pwd
/Volumes/see/new
mac $ cd ..
mac $ pwd
/Volumes/see
mac $ #  Delete the new directory.
mac $ rmdir new
mac $

You may used the rm command with a -R option to delete directories with files in them.

mac $ ls -dlF  data-dir
drwxr-xr-x  6 mac  staff  204 Mar  8 22:49 data-dir/
mac $ ls -l data-dir
total 0
-rw-r--r--  1 mac  staff  0 Mar  8 22:49 a
-rw-r--r--  1 mac  staff  0 Mar  8 22:49 b
-rw-r--r--  1 mac  staff  0 Mar  8 22:49 c
drwxr-xr-x  2 mac  staff  68 Mar  8 22:49 d
mac $ rm -iR data-dir
examine files in directory data-dir? y
remove data-dir/a? y
remove data-dir/b? y
remove data-dir/c? y
examine files in directory data-dir/d? y
remove data-dir/d? y
remove data-dir? y
mac $

man rm