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
    2024-10-16T15:44:47+00:00

    Hello,

    To delete network shares with thumbs.db with the Registry, use these steps:

    1. Open Start.
    2. Search for regedit, right-click the top result, and select the Run as administrator option.
    3. Browse the following path: 
       HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows
    4. Right-click the Windows folder, select the New submenu, and click on Key. Create Explorer Registry key
    5. Name the key Explorer and press Enter.
    6. Right-click the newly created key, select the New submenu, and click on the “DWORD (32-bit) Value” option. Registry create DisableThumbsDBOnNetworkFolders DWORD
    7. Name the DWORD DisableThumbsDBOnNetworkFolders and press Enter.
    8. Double-click the newly created DWORD and change its value from 0 to 1. Registry disable thumbnail caching policy to delete thumbs.db files
    9. Click the OK button.
    10. Restart your computer.

    Once you complete the steps, the new settings will apply, and you should now be able to delete thumbs.db files without the “The action can’t be completed because the file is open in Windows Explorer” message.

    Was this answer helpful?

    1 person found this answer helpful.
    0 comments
  2. Anonymous
    2024-11-07T14:25:28+00:00

    I just tried a bunch of little things. I remember that sometimes all I had to do was wait and work with other directories for a bit, and try again. I do not know if it was copying files, or making large icons on another directory, but it worked.

    Thing is, the specifics of it were still a mystery.

    So I tried changing the file name. It would not let me

    I changed the folder name. I still could not delete the file.

    I moved it to a different network folder, still no dice....

    So on a whim, I moved it to my desktop/local drive. It asked 'are you sure you want to do that?'. I said yep!

    I then right clicked on it and I could delete it from the desktop.

    Was this answer helpful?

    4 people found this answer helpful.
    0 comments
  3. Anonymous
    2024-11-07T17:27:27+00:00

    Hi ,

    Good to know you have deleted it.

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  4. Anonymous
    2024-11-08T12:16:36+00:00

    Awesome. We are building up a good selection of solutions for this annoyance.

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  5. Anonymous
    2024-12-06T08:15:55+00:00

    Found a way that works for me:

    • Open thumbs.db in notepad.
    • add characters to the file (random), save it
    • thumbs.db is now invalid, the lock is released
    • delete it.

    Don't know why it worked, should've gotten the same message about it being in use when trying to save, but this is the only thing that worked for me (without restarting, etc).

    Was this answer helpful?

    2 people found this answer helpful.
    0 comments