How do I force delete a file?

I have a random file placed in my desktop named "Unconfirmed 371801.crdownload" and I am extremely worried it is a virus and I want to remove it immediately but whenever I try to remove it, it throws a report " “Unconfirmed 371801.crdownload” can't be put in the trash. Do you want to delete it immediately? " then when I press Delete it says this "There was an error getting information about “Unconfirmed 371801.crdownload”." and I don't know how to get the information. Any help is appreciated.

Solution 1:

Unconfirmed 371801.crdownload is a temporary file that represents an unfinished download.

In general is not a virus. (unless what were you downloading is a virus)

To delete it you can try to close your browser (if is google-chrome check also that background processes are closed) and try to delete it.

If it doesn't work you can open a terminal pressing ctrl+alt+t.

Now you have to change the directory where the terminal is working with the following command:

cd Desktop

(I'm assuming that your file is placed in your desktop directory and you installed Ubuntu in English international / US).

To delete the file run this command:

rm -f Unconfirmed\ 371801.crdownload

This command will remove the file ignoring any errors. (add \ character because terminal doesn't take into account space in names). If you want more info about the command you can run from terminal this command:

man rm

If the file is still there you can try to run the rm command as superuser:

sudo rm -f Unconfirmed\ 371801.crdownload

This command will ask you superuser password and after will do the work.

In the end, if the file doesn't disappear, you try to click on your desktop and then press Ctrl+R. This will refresh your desktop.