Cannot delete Photoshop created file from iMac desktop.

February 19, 2012 1:31 PM

When using a custom Photoshop action to resize and save JPEGs to my desktop, something keeps happening occasionally that leaves a locked TMP file on my desktop that can only be deleted by restarting iMac.

It does not happen to every file, so I must be doing something every once in a while that causes the prob. I cannot move the file at all...not to a different folder or even a different location on my desktop. Cannot use "get info" to adjust permissions or unlock it. When I try to drag to trash i get this error :

"The item “filename” can’t be moved to the Trash because it can’t be deleted. After restarting iMac, file disappears.

Using a new 27-inch iMac with 10.7.3 and Photoshop CS5.

Any suggestions?

posted by slowtree to Computers & Internet (7 answers total)

Do any actions short of restarting the Mac help? Quitting and restarting Photoshop itself, or logging out and back in to your user account (but not actually restarting the machine)?
posted by hattifattener at 1:47 PM on February 19, 2012 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Closing and restarting Photoshop does nothing. Just tried Logging out and back into User account and it changes nothing either.
posted by slowtree at 1:55 PM on February 19, 2012

Best answer: Tried relaunching the Finder (Apple menu - Force Quit - [select Finder] - Relaunch)?
posted by Pinback at 2:43 PM on February 19, 2012

This sounds like maybe Photoshop is failing to delete a temporary file that is created with permissions that prevent your use account from deleting the file. Can you, in a terminal, do:

cd ~/Desktop/
sudo rm -f yourtempfile.tmp

(I'm not a Mac guy, so you might have to tailor the cd command above to actually point to wherever your Desktop folder is in your filesystem.) If that works then it's a permissions thing.

That said, does the existence of this file actually prevent you from doing something you're trying to do? You've found *A* solution to the problem (restarting)... why not just ignore the occasional temp file hiccup, knowing they'll disappear on your next reboot anyway?
posted by axiom at 3:10 PM on February 19, 2012

You might learn more by leaving off the sudo and -f and seeing what error message 'rm' gives you. For that matter try

cd ~/Desktop
ls -l@Oe yourtempfile.tmp

to list a bunch of the file's attributes.
posted by hattifattener at 3:36 PM on February 19, 2012

Best answer: Fixed! Re-launching finder did the trick. Thanks so much, Pinback!

Also, the reason this had become so annoying is due to the amount of images i'm working with. Having locked files all over my desktop was seriously messing with my organization and workflow.

Thanks again:)
posted by slowtree at 5:02 PM on February 19, 2012

Yeah, the Finder seems to have an issue sometimes when it comes to 'seeing' the attributes or state of some files. I've never really bothered to figure out exactly what's going on, but it seems to happen mainly when moving or deleting large files. For example, I'll often get large (multi-gig) files stuck in the trash which require a Finder relaunch or reboot to delete.

I hadn't seen you exact issue though. It's be interesting to know if the 'stuck' files appear in a directory listing in a terminal and, if so, what attributes & file size they have. (i.e. hattifattener's answer). My gut feeling is that they either won't appear there at all, or they'll have the correct permissions but a filesize of 0.
posted by Pinback at 9:30 PM on February 19, 2012