When running disk cleanup the checkbox for temporary internet files has a "padlock" on it and consequently the files won't delete. Anyone know why this is and if the "padlock" can be removed. See photo attached.??
Win 10 pro
ver 19044.1741
That icon does not denoted that the files are locked. That's simply the type of icon used for that type of file. If you scroll down the list of various files you can delete, you will note that others also have customized icons.
However, it is true that there may be some files that you cannot immediately delete. You might try clicking on the line that says "Temporary Internet Files", then click on "View Files" to see if you can get an idea of what those files are and what might have them in use.
NOTE: On my system, there are NO temporary files at all, but the lock icon still appears, indicating that this is just the default icon for that file type since there are clearly no locked files.
hsehestedt,
Thx for the reply. I do see other icons as you described. Do you, or anyone have any idea why the "files" under this category won't delete.??
Probably because something is still using those files.
First, I don't know how much energy you really want to expend over an amount of space that is probably about enough to store only a dozen or so photos in, but it you really want to know, do a google search for utilities that will show what is holding those files open.
As an alternative, you could try booting into safe mode. That will often free up such files and allow you to delete them while in safe mode.
Use storage sense not disk cleanup it does a lot more and it can run in its own to keep everything going
Because they're not actually there to be deleted. The size is being misreported by Disk Clean up. This is a long-standing bug, as can be seen by this post of mine from 2018.
Bree said:
It's interesting to note that I have not (yet) seen this bug in Windows 11, though I still see it in Windows 10. This may well be because Win11 does not include Internet Explorer, while it is still included in Windows 10.
It may well be that the bug will disappear in Windows 10 after Internet Explorer 11 is retired on June 15th this year. After it is retired I would expect that IE will be removed from Windows 10 at the next cumulative update.
Internet Explorer 11 desktop app retirement on June 15, 2022 FAQs
Quote