Can't delete a folder, why?

2011

Hi, perhaps someone can help.

I have an empty folder within a folder. When I try to delete it a window comes up saying "Finder wants to make changes. Type your password to allow this". I type in my password and then a window comes up saying "The operation can’t be completed because you don’t have permission to access some of the items".

I am the administrator. Why is this happening and how can I fix it??

Many thanks!

Gordon

Right click the folder and click 'get info' and look at the sharing and permissions, can you amend them?

This happens with some downloaded folders, not sure why tbh! I think they are originally locked and you tfr them over and are still locked, but if you have them on your drive you should be able to amend permissions or something and unlock them.

2011

Gordon wrote: »

Right click the folder and click 'get info' and look at the sharing and permissions, can you amend them?

This happens with some downloaded folders, not sure why tbh! I think they are originally locked and you tfr them over and are still locked, but if you have them on your drive you should be able to amend permissions or something and unlock them.

Thanks for the quick reply.

I have tried this already.

Under sharing and permissions my privilege is "Read & Write".
This is not a downloaded folder. I can click on the little padlock, enter my password and unlock it, but this does not help.

By the way, what is "trf" ?

Gordon

TFR = Transfer! Sorreh!

Under 'general' when you click 'get info' does it have ticked 'shared folder' or 'locked'?

2011

Gordon wrote: »

TFR = Transfer! Sorreh!

Under 'general' when you click 'get info' does it have ticked 'shared folder' or 'locked'?

I right click, then click "get info", then there are 2 boxes, one for "shared folder" and one for "locked".
Neither are ticked.

Losty Dublin

Are you logged in as an administrator, 2011? Also, what or where is the folder you are trying to delete?

taylorconor95

Is this a job for rm -rf?

2011

Losty Dublin wrote: »

Are you logged in as an administrator, 2011?

Yes

Also, what or where is the folder you are trying to delete?

The folder is now an empty folder.
I have it stored here:

/Users/My Name/Documents/Folder Name/Another Folder Name


When I right click info under "sharing and permissions" it says "you have custom access"

MiniNukinfuts

Just go into terminal and manually delete the file. If you know how.

2011

MiniNukinfuts wrote: »

Just go into terminal and manually delete the file. If you know how.

I right click, select move to trash and that won't work.
I drag it to the trash bin and that won't work either.

I have successfully deleted many other folders and files without any issues.
My feeling is that the problem lies with "sharing and permissions" because it says "custom access". Does anyone know how to change this?

MiniNukinfuts

Try this to delete the folder.

2011

MiniNukinfuts wrote: »

Try this to delete the folder.

Thanks for your reply. I will try this tonight, never heard of it before.

jester77

2011 wrote: »

Thanks for your reply. I will try this tonight, never heard of it before.

Just be careful with that command. rm -rf XXX will recursively force remove everything under XXX. Make sure you are deleting what you intend to delete.

MiniNukinfuts

I just tried that guide there, it doesn't work for me. Basically what you have to do is, open up terminal, type "sudo rm -f "(there is a space on purpose) then drag and drop the folder you want to delete into the terminal window. The whole command should look something like "sudo rm -f /users/myname/documents/foldername/anotherfoldername"

Just press enter on that, you will be prompted to enter the admin password then, after that the folder should be deleted.