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.

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  1. Anonymous
    2025-06-24T05:59:18+00:00

    Having read this full thread, the only way I managed to get rid of thumbs.db is by using 7-Zip and choosing the "Delete files after compression" option.

    If you find this helpful please give it a YES vote below👍

    It is a corporate (locked down) Win11 PC and I've tried the following before 7-Zip...

    • I can't rename it (file is in use)
    • I can edit it, but can't save it (file is in use)
    • I can't Move the folder somewhere else (file is in use)
    • I can't run Resource Monitor (needs administrator access)
    • I can't start in Safe Mode
    • I tried Always show as icons, never thumbails on/off
    • I tried Display file icon on thumbnails on/off
    • I tried the restarting Explorer trick but that didn't work
    • The folder name(s) do not contain "Photo" / "Pictures" / "Video" / "Media", etc.

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