Unable to delete thumbs.db

Anonymous
2023-03-22T08:55:44+00:00

I'm on the newest Win10 and am looking for a way to delete folders which only contain one file, the thumbs.db, and nothing else.

I've read several things in this thread (which is now closed) where some didn't help and others were too painful to be even tried (why should i have to boot in safe mode?).

Is there a easy way to delete those folders?

I'm often succeeding with restarting explorer.exe from the taskmanager's app tab (wondering why explorer.exe is the only process offering "restart" in its context menu) and then being quick enough to delete such folders before explorer grabs em again. But there are always some hard ones which somehow escape this hack.

For such the only working thing i know of is to actually end all explorer.exe processes, delete the folder from a cmd line with rmdir /S/Q "foldername" and restart explorer.exe. But both approaches are a pain because usually i have many explorer.exe windows open an don't like to restore them all manually because that's a waste of time.

Is there a proper way to delete those folders which doesn't involve hacking the registry, changing system wide settings, booting from a linux live cd or killing explorer.exe? After all their empty so i don't understand why there's the need to hold on to a thumbs.db which by then shouldn't contain any thumbs. Maybe there's a purge-unused-thumbs option somewhere?

Windows for home | Windows 10 | Files, folders, and storage

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

0 comments

66 answers

Sort by: Oldest
Most helpful Newest Oldest
  1. Anonymous
    2025-04-17T14:48:04+00:00

    OK, I am not going through 6 pages on this, but here is what I tried and it worked.

    On my company's drive I had two folders that I could not get rid of because of Thumbs.db. I have no real Admin rights, so some of the solutions given were not available.

    I tried renaming it, and I could, but I still could not delete it.

    What DID work was taking the directory, right-click dragging it over to my desktop and selecting "move". I then selected it (I did not open it) and I was able to delete it.

    One note, however. I did rename it before moving, so I don't know if that is needed or not.

    This is similar to trying to detach attachments in mail, but the saved mail is still large. If I remember it correctly, save the mail to desktop, remove the attachments, save again, change the name and then "save as" somewhere else.

    I would have to go through the permutations of that to see if renaming it AND saving as are both needed, but this has worked to bring some 20M mailings down to a few KB.

    Was this answer helpful?

    2 people found this answer helpful.
    0 comments
  2. Anonymous
    2025-04-17T14:58:46+00:00

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  3. Anonymous
    2025-04-28T12:50:31+00:00

    When a Thumbs.db file cannot be removed because an error shows that a process has the Thumbs.db file open, then killing the process holding it open will free it up and the Thumbs.db file can be removed.

    NOTE: It is likely that after killing the process holding the Thumbs.db file open that related processes will also be killed, such as Windows Explorer, so before killing the process, open a Powershell window and use the "cd" command to change the folder to the folder containing the Thumbs.db file:

    e.g, if the Thumbs.db file is in c:\users\music the Powershell command would be: cd c:\users\music

    To run Powershell press the Windows Key and r at the same time, then type powershell in text box)

    Find the process that needs to be killed

    • Run taskmgr (Windows Key and r at the same time, then type taskmgr in text box)

    • Go to Performance Tab 

    • Open Resource Monitor (Bottom of Screen).

    • In the Resource Monitor switch to CPU tab

    • Select Associated Handles (Below list of processes)

    • In the text box type  Thumbs.db 

    • Select the process listed and Right Click to end (kill) the process

    The Powershell window should still be available, to remove the Thumbs.db file the Powershell command would be: rm -f Thumbs.db

    • If related processes have also been killed (e.g, some windows or the taskbar are no longer running) reboot Windows

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  4. Anonymous
    2025-05-21T22:25:35+00:00

    Unable to move or delete folders due to that annoying thumbs.db file? Don't have Admin privelidges? I have discovered a quick and easy way to make it deletable:

    1. Right-Click the thumbs.db file.
    2. Edit in Notepad.
    3. Select all.
    4. Delete.
    5. Save.
    6. Select the thumbs.db file and delete.

    Poof! It's gone until it gets created again. Hurry and move or delete the folder before that happens. ;)

    Was this answer helpful?

    8 people found this answer helpful.
    0 comments
  5. Anonymous
    2025-06-02T09:01:17+00:00

    I tried this, but couldn't rename it because it said it was being used by explorer.

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments