Deleting a closed file within Excel - Excel reports it is still open....

Question

Excel 365, Windows 10 x64

Took following steps:

1. launch Excel
2. open a file
3. close file
4. File > in 'Recent': r-click the file > 'Delete file'
5. Excel : are you sure bla bla? (Yes)
6. Then we can't delete... file .. because you have it open.

Note: The file name does -not- show the leading ~$ characters of an open file, so I assume it is closed then.

and .. Yes .. I know it can be deleted using Explorer.

OTOH it would save me a little bit of time to do that within Excel: in Explorer I need to search for the file, drill down the folder tree, etc.

I need to switch to another application.

Answer 1

Hi ，Mike_884

Welcome to Microsoft Community and thank you for sharing your concern with us today.

It may be recognized that this file is not closed due to interference in the Excel process.

You can try the following steps to see if it helps with this issue。

1. Try to end the Excel process in the process manager, and then reopen it to try the effect.

Press Ctrl + Alt + Delete on the keyboard, and then select Task Manager. Find Excel, exit and restart.

2. Cancel the add-on and eliminate plug-in interference.

Open the Excel program.

Click "File", open "Options", click "Add-ons", and click "Go" next to "COM Add-ons".

Uncheck all the add-ons in it and click "OK".

Reopen Excel to observe the problem.

3. If the file is in a shared state and someone else is opening the file, it may not be able to be closed. 

Hope this helps, and have a nice day.

Best Regards,

Hinata

Microsoft Community Support Specialist