How to Delete, Move, or Rename Locked Files in Windows. Windows wont allow you to modify files that open programs have locked. In some cases, it may not be clear which program has locked a file. Sometimes, a program or background process may have finished with a file, but not unlocked it properly when it was done. In that case, you must unlock the stubborn file or folder in order to modify the file. Locked Up Abroad' title='Locked Up Abroad' />Note Unlocking certain files and deleting them can cause problems with open programs. Dont unlock and delete files that should remain locked, including Windows system files. Unlock a File with Process Explorer. You can unlock a file by using the excellent Process Explorer task manager. Weve covered Process Explorer in detail before, so here well just dive right into how to unlock a file. You wont need to install it firstits a portable appbut you will need to run it with administrative privileges. You actually can do this from within Process Explorer by clicking the File menu and selecting Show Details for All Processes. Next, click the Find menu and select Find Handle or DLL. Or press CtrlF. Search for the name of the locked file or folder. Select the locked file or folder and youll see the handle in the details box at the bottom of the Process Explorer window. Right click the handle and select Close Handle. If multiple processes are listed in the search window, youll have to repeat this step to close the handle for each process. You can now delete or modify the file normally. IObit Unlocker. IObit Unlocker is a useful utility for unlocking files, and its free. It even puts a command for unlocking files right on the context menu. After you install the program, you can right click  a stubborn file or folder and select IObit Unlocker to open the app with that file selected. Youll see a list of processes that have locked the file or folder. You can quickly unlock the file by clicking the Unlock button. This method unlocks the file while leaving the process running. Note that this may cause problems if a process expects exclusive access to a file. You can also click the Forced Mode checkbox and then click Unlock to forcibly close whatever program is locking access to the file. Youll lose any unsaved data in any program killed this way. JU6cs.png' alt='Locked Windows Files' title='Locked Windows Files' />Svn Release LockOnce the file is unlocked, you can delete, move, or rename it normally. In fact, the IOBit Unlocker application has easy Unlock Delete, Unlock Rename, and Unlock Move options. Just click the arrow to the right of the Unlock button. Restart Your Computer. Generally, a file wont be locked after you restart your computerunless the program that locked it is a startup program that locks the file as soon as you log in. If you have a stubborn file or folder and dont want to use any of the tricks here, you can try restarting your computer. You should be able to delete, move, or rename the file as soon as Windows comes back up. If the file is being locked by a startup program, you can boot to safe mode to delete it instead. If youre on Windows 7, press the F8 key during the startup process and select Safe Mode to boot into safe mode. If youre using Windows 8 or 1. Delete or move the file in safe mode and restart your computer. There are a variety of other ways to delete locked files. For example, you could use a program to schedule a file deletion when you next restart your computerthe file will be automatically deleted when you reboot. Windows wont allow you to modify files that open programs have locked. PtcOoD' alt='Locked Mementos' title='Locked Mementos' />But weve found it much easier using one of the methods weve detailed here. Locked files Windows Sync. If the Status column shows that 1 or more files are locked, it means that some other application has blocked access to these files, thus making it impossible for Sync to transfer data. The error message is clickable and opens the list of locked files. Hover mouse over a file to see its full path. A click on the file will take you to it. However, Sync cannot tell which application has locked them. Still, it is possible to manually identify the locked files and determine which app is likely to have caused the problem. For example, using Process Monitor utility, one can see all the processes running in a defined directory or with a specified file. Close that app and restart Sync. If you are modifying and syncing a file at the same time on Windows machine then you also need to check this article. If there is no an application that can block access to your files, please try to restart Sync. Delete locked files in windows free download Locked Files Wizard, Undo Delete, Delete Duplicate Files, and many more programs. Under the Tools menu you can select Find OpenedLocked Files to find what program has a filefolder locked so that you can. Windows Explorer Style Custom. Any files in use or open within another software package are automatically locked. Consequently, if you try to delete, or remove, a locked file a Folder in use window. I have a shared folder on a Windows 2003 storage server that our developers use. Recently there are many cases where files are being locked and users cant. Health Walker Plus Instruction Manual more. If you are facing problems with locked files receive File Is Locked error, then this article will tell you how to unlock files in Windows easily.