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barrygb54's avatar
barrygb54
Occasional Reader
Feb 27, 2026

Unable to delete a directory on windows 11 - my solution

It's crazy, I couldn't delete 2 empty directories for the life of me. I tried ALL of the solutions, believe me. Hours. Redgedits, Reboots, Remove Empty Directories, too many solutions to list. I recall messages that the file wasn't found, or moved to a different locarion, and other errors that I cannot recall.

Then I gave up and just for the h3ll of it, got on my android tablet, and used my file app (Luckfick File Manager} and I accessed the share that my directories that I couldn't delete on my Windows 11 machine, and I deleted them from the android app. Not trusting my eyes, I ran to the PC and lo and behold - the directories in File Explorer were gone!!!! I think that they contained a funky character " ) " (Parentheses) - Screenshot of file in Recycle Bin below.

So, whatever you are using Android, or maybe APPLE, you can try this with your file app, it obviously has to have access to SMB shares and the directory must be shared SMB, and it may work. Let me know.

 

 

1 Reply

  • Dukeka's avatar
    Dukeka
    Copper Contributor

    It's possible that the directories were hard-linked to another location on your system, making them appear as empty but actually containing content elsewhere.