How to find and release a File Locked by another process in Windows 11

Symptoms

“The action can’t be completed because the file is open in another program”
“The process cannot access the file because it is being used by another process”
A folder can’t be renamed, moved or deleted, even though nothing seems to be using it
- A background process holds a handle on the file (an Office instance, a media player, a backup agent)
- Antivirus or OneDrive is scanning or syncing the file
- A Command Prompt, PowerShell or WSL window has the folder as its current directory
- Explorer’s preview pane or a shell extension (thumbnail, preview handler) is reading the file

Method A: Resource monitor

Press Win + R, type resmon and press Enter
Open the CPU tab
Expand Associated Handles
Type the file or folder name in the search box on the right. Partial names work
Note the Image (process) and PID in the results
Close that program normally. If it won’t close, right-click the process in the top list and choose End Process. Save your work first.
Retry the delete, move or rename.

Method B: PowerToys File Locksmith

Install PowerToys: winget install Microsoft.PowerToys --source winget
In PowerToys Settings, enable File Locksmith.
Right-click the locked file or folder in Explorer, then choose Show more options → What’s using this file?
The window lists the processes holding the file. You can end them from there.

Method C: PowerShell (for locked DLLs and modules)

This only finds processes that have the file loaded as a module, not every kind of handle:

powershell

Get-Process | Where-Object {
  $_.Modules.FileName -like "*yourfile.dll*"
} | Select-Object Name, Id

Run PowerShell as Administrator, otherwise some processes can’t be inspected.

If nothing shows up

Close any terminal windows whose prompt is inside the folder.
Restart Explorer: Task Manager → Windows Explorer → Restart.
Pause OneDrive sync (tray icon → Pause syncing) and retry.
Temporarily disable real-time antivirus scanning, only if you trust the file.
Reboot and delete the file before anything else starts.
Last resort: boot into Safe Mode, or into the Windows Recovery Environment command prompt, and delete it with del or rmdir /s.

Verification

Notes

Killing system processes can crash the session. Only end processes you recognize.
Never force-delete a file that a database or backup job is writing to. Stop the service first.

Permanent