If you are trying to access a particular file on your Windows 10 computer either to open, rename or delete it, and you suddenly encounter an error stating, “Could not find this item. This is no longer located in [Path]. Verify the item’s location and try again”, read on for this post will help you out in resolving this issue.
If you are able to find and view a file on your computer, you should have clear access to it. And since you are seeing an error message when you try to do something about this file, you are not able to do anything with the file. There are times when this error pops up with the files created by third-party services and that the file’s extension is not defined properly. On the other hand, there are also other obscure causes for this error. To fix it, here are some suggestions you can try.
Option 1 – Delete the file using Command Prompt
If you wish to delete the problematic file and weren’t to, you can use Command Prompt.
- In the Start menu, type in “Command Prompt” to search for it or you could also click the search button right next to the Start menu and then right-click on the related result and select the option “Run as administrator”.
- Once you’ve opened Command Prompt, copy and paste the command given below and tap Entre after you do so. You also have to make sure that you key in the correct path where the file is located as well as its name.
rd /s \?X:badfolderpath
Note: In the command above, “X” is the placeholder letter so you must input the letter that corresponds to the drive’s letter where the file is located.
- After that, you will see the “Operation completed successfully” message on your screen. If you don’t, check if you’ve really inputted the correct location of the file or its name.
Option 2 – Use a Command Prompt tweak to rename the file
If you don’t want to delete the file and only want to rename it, you can apply some tweaks using the Command Prompt. Make sure to follow the steps carefully.
- In the Start menu, type in “Command Prompt” to search for it or you could also click the search button right next to the Start menu and then right-click on the related result and select the option “Run as administrator”.
- After opening Command Prompt, type in “cd” followed by the path where the file is located with this format – “C:\Folder1\Folder2\Folder3”. However, you have to omit the problematic file this time. To put it simply, the last folder in the command must be the folder where the file is located.
- After inputting the command, tap Enter on your keyboard and then use the set of commands given below. Note that each command is a new line so you need to tap Enter after copying each line.
- DIR /A /X /P
- RENAME (the current name of the problematic file) (a non-problematic name)
- EXIT
Note: Make sure that you only input the current name and the new name separated by a space. You must not write the brackets in the command. If everything goes well, you will now be able to operate the file like you used to before.
Option 3 – Use Command Prompt to delete the file without any extension
This option applies to cases where the affected file does not have any viable extension which means that Windows does not really know what to do with it and it only displays the “Could not find this item. This is no longer located in [Path]. Verify the item’s location and try again” error message. It usually occurs with the files created by browser plugins that are mostly from Mozilla Firefox. To delete these kinds of files, here’s what you have to do:
- Follow the first two steps from the previous option above so you can navigate to the location of the file accurately just be careful in inputting the folders.
- Don’t forget to tap Enter right after each command and then use the next command below so you can delete the affected file which has no extension:
del *.*
- After you’re done, open the File Explorer and then check if the file is now deleted or not.
Option 4 – Try using another workaround without using Command Prompt
This option is a lot like a workaround but it definitely gets the job done for you. It’s ideal for you if you do not want to deal with Command Prompt and only want to do everything in a graphical environment. To get started, follow the steps below.
- Look for the affected file or folder on your PC using File Explorer. Once you found it, right-click on it and select the “Add to archive” option from the context menu.
- Once the archiving options window pops up, look for the
“Delete files after archiving” option and make sure that you select it then click OK to start archiving the folder or file. After that, you should now notice the file no longer exists.
- After that, delete the archive file as well.