file that "doesn't exist" cannot be deleted

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Level 1

4 points

file that "doesn't exist" cannot be deleted

hello, i have an issue with a file. i've already contacted apple support and they weren't able to help.

there's a file that i've already deleted, but it's come back. when i try to delete, move, or even rename it i get a alert that i can't because it doesn't exist. this is extremely frustrating. it alo says “waiting..” under it like it’s still trying to download itself. i've already hard reset my phone, reset it's settings, and toggled the icloud and on my iphone settings off in the files app. it's not located in the cloud drive or local drive. nothing is working. please help me

iPhone 15, iOS 26

Posted on Nov 11, 2025 7:42 PM

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Answer 1

Nov 11, 2025 7:53 PM in response to tae158

The file is apparently associated with a file-hosting service, based on the ☁️.

Which one?

If this involves a third-party file-hosting service — if not iCloud — remove the third-party file-hosting client, restart iOS, and try the deletion again.

If it involves iVlpud, sign out of iCloud, restart iOS, sign-in again, and try again.

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Answer 2

Nov 11, 2025 8:36 PM in response to tae158

Assuming iOS 26.1 is in use here…

So you disconnected and deleted the third-party file-hosting app, restarted or force-restarted the iPhone, and checked again?

If so, the third-party file-hosting app appears to have been involved with a file system corruption.

Back up, reset, reload, and restore the iPhone.

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Answer 3

Nov 12, 2025 4:09 PM in response to tae158

tae158 wrote:

okay thank you. so if i get enough storage to do the backup and factory reset my phone, the file will be gone right?

Presumably yes, but exactly what happened here remains unclear.

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Answer 4

Nov 12, 2025 11:40 AM in response to tae158

tae158 wrote:

is there anything else i could do besides resetting my whole phone? im unable to due to not enough icloud storage

Anything else? Sure. Ignore the corruption.

As for your current predicament, that seemingly just got a little larger too, because backups are the only way to mark data as being valuable. Those backups can be to iCloud, or to a local Mac or Windows PC. An iPhone with no backups is one drop, on dunk, one loss or theft, hardware failure, or data corruption away from data loss.

If you’ve been running the iPhone near or at its storage capacity, that may well have been involved with or even caused the corruption, too.

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