It can be frustrating to run into this brick wall. After all, you can see the file or folder you need to delete on your screen, but you can’t delete it because of an annoying prompt. If you’re stuck with this message, here are some fixes to get rid of it.
1. Restart Windows Explorer
Before you attempt any of the interesting troubleshooting steps in this article, you should try restarting Windows Explorer first.
To do that, follow the steps below:
Right-click Start on the Taskbar and select Task Manager. In the Processes tab, select Windows Explorer and click the Restart button in the bottom right corner. Try to delete the file or folder and see if the “Could not find this item” prompt will show up again.
2. Zip Up the Item and Then Delete the Zipped File
An easy workaround to avoid the “Could not find this item” prompt is to place the file or folder in a zipped archive and then try to delete that instead. Luckily, Windows has a built-in utility to compress files and folders into a ZIP file without needing any third-party tools.
To zip a file or folder, right-click the item and select Compress to ZIP file if you’re on Windows 11.
If you’re on Windows 10, right-click the file or folder and select Send to > Compressed (zipped) folder in the context menu.
Now delete the zipped archive and, hopefully, it will go away, along with the file or folder you were initially trying to delete.
3. Delete the File Using PowerShell
Even if you don’t know what PowerShell is, you can still use it to solve a host of problems if you know what commands to use. Here’s how to delete a file or folder using the del command in PowerShell:
Right-click the file or folder you wish to delete and select Copy as path. This will copy the item’s file path, which you’ll need later. Press Win + S to open Windows Search and type powershell in the search box. Right-click on Windows PowerShell in the search results and select Run as administrator. Click Yes on the UAC prompt. In PowerShell, the command you should type has the following structure: del [“drive:\path\filename”] You should replace the text within the square brackets with the file path you copied in the first step by pressing Ctrl + V in PowerShell. The final command should look like the screenshot below. Hit the Enter key to run the command and see if PowerShell could get rid of the file or folder.
4. Try Renaming the File
If deleting the item with PowerShell didn’t work, you should try renaming it first before deleting it.
Here’s how to rename a file using the REN command in PowerShell:
Right-click the file or folder you wish to delete and select Copy as path. Press Win + S to open Windows Search and type powershell in the search box. Right-click on Windows PowerShell in the search results and select Run as administrator. Click Yes on the UAC prompt. The command to rename a file in PowerShell should have the following structure: REN drive:\path\OldName NewName In the above command structure, you should replace drive:\path\OldName with the file path you copied in the first step by pressing Ctrl + V in PowerShell. Then, replace NewName with the name you want to rename the file or folder to. It should look like the screenshot below. Press Enter to run the command, and PowerShell will rename the item. Now try deleting the file the usual way and see if that works. If the “Could not find this item” error appears again, try the steps outlined in the previous section to delete it with PowerShell instead.
5. Try Deleting the Item in Safe Mode
If none of the options above have worked so far, you should try deleting the item in Safe Mode.
Follow the instructions below to boot Windows into Safe Mode:
Click Start on the Taskbar, press and hold the Shift key, and select Power > Restart. When your computer restarts, it will display the Advanced Startup Options (ASO) menu. From there, click on Troubleshoot. Click on Advanced options. Choose Startup Settings. Click on the Restart button. When your computer restarts, you’ll see various Startup Settings. Hit 4 to boot your computer in Safe Mode. Try to delete the file or folder again and see if that will do the trick. Restart your computer and boot into Windows normally.
6. Use a Third-Party App
After trying to delete the file or folder the Windows way to no avail, you can get help from a third-party tool. While there are many apps you can use to this end, we’ll use a lightweight file shredding tool called Eraser in our example.
Follow the instructions below to learn how to download and use Eraser:
Go to Eraser’s download page and download the latest version of the app. Go to the location where you downloaded Eraser’s installer, launch it, and follow the instructions to install it. Once Windows fully installs Eraser, the app will integrate into the context menu. To delete a file or folder using Eraser on Windows 10, right-click on it and select Eraser > Erase. On Windows 11, right-click the item and select Show more options > Eraser > Erase. Click Yes on the UAC prompt. You’ll get a prompt from Eraser asking you to confirm your decision. Click Yes, and the app will delete the file or folder from your system.
Hopefully, that will delete the item from your computer once and for all.
Deleting the Undeletable in Windows
When a file or folder seems undeletable in Windows because of the “Could not find this item” error, you’re not stuck with it. You can use various tools within Windows and even some from third parties to get rid of it. Follow the troubleshooting steps mentioned above, and you won’t see that annoying prompt again.
