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.
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That typically would represent a file being downloaded by google chrome, or another browser. Are you currently downloading any files?– user508889Apr 9, 2016 at 16:49
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A .crdownload file should be invisible to you - the user - so you apparently turned on hidden files. The file contains the information downloaded before it is finished (in other words, once the file finishes downloading its renamed to the correct file name). Chrome cleans these files after a crash or similar corruptions. I advise you to restart (dont open chrome), open the "get info" panel (right click on the .crdownload file), next on the bottom it would have a premissions tab and change the permissions such that you have full access to the file and next you should be able to delete the file.– MahdiApr 11, 2016 at 0:11
3 Answers
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.
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Thanks to everyone who told me to close chrome (which is what I am using) and do everything else, it really helped! I was worried but you guys helped me. Thanks!– JonathanApr 12, 2016 at 19:15
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I have a similar problem with some temp files which are left into the HDD by the PDF reader (Okular), not always, but... Those files have names as ".fuse_hidden0000011d00000003". When I use the rm -f command to try to erase it, the files remain still there, with a new name (a correlative value is added to the last number of the original name). The only one way I found to erase those files, is restarting the whole system. But, I wonder if there is another "more smart" way to do it... Is there???– JuanSep 15, 2017 at 20:15
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1When using
rm
, it's better not to start with-f
unless you're totally sure what's what you want, because (a) it can remove files you may not want to remove (such as read-only files) without asking you, and (b) it can not remove files you do want to remove without telling you it didn't. That's because part of what-f
does is to "ignore nonexistent files and arguments," so if the filename turned out to be subtly wrong, you'll think you removed the file when really there was no file of that name to remove. Sep 18, 2017 at 19:13
I had the same problem and the command sudo rm -f
did not work for me. I also could not resume the download. However I was able to get rid of it by deleting everything in the Chrome Menu --> Downloads and then Right Click on the .crdownload file --> Open With --> Other Application... --> Chrome. After this, the file simply disappeared.
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Please, it is preferable to post this as a comment under the answer above because it goes in the same light as @Eliah Kagan's comment. Feb 8, 2018 at 22:00
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1@YufenyuyVeyehDider it can't be posted as a comment due to rights of the poster (not enough cred yet to comment).– guivercFeb 9, 2018 at 1:16
Go to the folder where the file is; Right click and open a terminal; Than 'ls' and get the file name. Than do: sudo rm -rf (filename with extension).
It'll be in your bin then and you can empty the bin.