Not able to delete a file in Fusion 360

[Aadithya01]

I have been facing this dialogue box for a while . Can anyone tell me how to delete a file when it shows the document is in use . Dont know why it is showing that the document is in use even when I am not using it

[SaeedHamza]

Hi,

is there anyone working on the file with you? if not try restarting Fusion, because I guess there is a link using it, and by link I mean maybe A360 or even Fusion App, so close them all if they are opened

regards, Saeed

[Anonymous]

I have this same problem and it is very irritating. I end up renaming the file "ZZZ - Don't use" so that it moves to the bottom of my project folder. But I now have dozens of "ZZZ - Don't use" files littering my folders. Please if someone has a solution let us know.

Thanks.

[Anonymous]

 

[paul.clauss]

Hi @Anonymous, @Aadithya01, @SaeedHamza

Thanks for posting! It is unfortunate that you have been unable to delete certain Fusion 360 designs.

@Aadithya01 - Sometimes the warning you are experiencing can be resolved by opening the design in Fusion, saving a new version, and then closing the design. After the new version is allowed to sync to the cloud you should be able to delete it. Please try doing so and let me know if you are still unable to delete the design. You might also want to try deleting the design from your A360 Dashboard rather than the Fusion 360 Data Panel.

@Anonymous - It looks like you are experiencing an issue in which the design you are trying to delete says it is linked to other designs, but the design does not show that it is linked to any other designs. This can occur if you insert a version of the design into another and then delete the link - the older version of the deisng will still be referenced and the parent design will need to be deleted first. Please see Masas screencast on post 4/4 in this forum thread for more information.

Hopefully this helps! Please let me know if you have any questions - I am happy to continue troubleshooting.

[Anonymous]

Thanks Paul, let me have a look at this.

I can add that in most cases I did not just break the link to the part in assembly, but actually deleted the component from the assembly. Yet I am still unable to delete the item from the Project Folder.

[paul.clauss]

Hi @Anonymous

Thanks for the response - it is unfortunate that you have still been unable to delete the designs. 

Have you tried deleting the designs from your A360 hub in a web browser rather than in Fusion? I would try doing so, maybe it will allow the designs to be deleted. Please give it a shot and let me know how it goes.

I did find that after inserting a design into an assembly design I was required to restart Fusion 360 before it would allow me to delete the inserted design file. My workflow is detailed below - perhaps following it will allow you to delete some of your old designs;

1. Insert a design into an assembly.
2. Break the link to the inserted design.
3. Delete the inserted design (removing it from the assembly file).
4. Save the assembly design.
5. Try to delete the inserted design through the Data Panel - gives "in use" error and cannot delete.
6. Close the Fusion 360 application.
7. Reopen Fusion 360.
8. Delete the inserted component file through the Data Panel before opening the assembly design. This allowed the file to be deleted for me.

Hopefully this helps! Please let me know if you are still unable to delete the designs and we will continue troubleshooting - I am happy to assist.

[Aadithya01]

Hey @Anonymous ,
I already tried deleting the file in A360 .. it shows the same .. "document is in use" .. the procedure that you told .. i have tried it many times still it did get deleted ..

Hey paul i remember generating some public link for some fusion files .. is that a reason for this problem which we are facing

[Aadithya01]

*still it didnt get deleted .. NOT DID GET DELETED ..

[paul.clauss]

Hi @Aadithya01

Sharing a public link only allows a another Fusion user to download a copy of the file - the copied file is not linked to the original, and this should not be the cause of the inability to delete the design. 

Have you tried to rename the file and then delete it? Are you sure that none of the versions of your design are used in another design, as described in my fifth post on this thread? It is possible that you are unable to delete your design because an older version of it is referenced by another design - please see Masas screencast (linked in my previous post as well) if you have not already and let me know if that helps you delete the design. 

There are some issues that can occur after inserting X-referenced designs - the flag can get set and some workflows, including deleting a design, can be blocked. We are working to develop better deletion tools and I would recommend simply creating a "Trash" project folder and moving the designs you cannot currently delete to that folder to keep them out of your way and avoid confusion and frustration. This is a known issue and we apologize for any inconveniences it has caused you - please create a trash folder to which you can move the designs you have been unable to delete. 

Hopefully this helps you work around the behavior you are experiencing! Feel free to let me know if you have any questions.

[Anonymous]

---

@paul.clauss wrote:

Hi @Anonymous

Thanks for the response - it is unfortunate that you have still been unable to delete the designs. 

Have you tried deleting the designs from your A360 hub in a web browser rather than in Fusion? I would try doing so, maybe it will allow the designs to be deleted. Please give it a shot and let me know how it goes.

I did find that after inserting a design into an assembly design I was required to restart Fusion 360 before it would allow me to delete the inserted design file. My workflow is detailed below - perhaps following it will allow you to delete some of your old designs;

1. Insert a design into an assembly.
2. Break the link to the inserted design.
3. Delete the inserted design (removing it from the assembly file).
4. Save the assembly design.
5. Try to delete the inserted design through the Data Panel - gives "in use" error and cannot delete.
6. Close the Fusion 360 application.
7. Reopen Fusion 360.
8. Delete the inserted component file through the Data Panel before opening the assembly design. This allowed the file to be deleted for me.

Hopefully this helps! Please let me know if you are still unable to delete the designs and we will continue troubleshooting - I am happy to assist.

---

Thanks for the tips Paul. Will try it out and let you know. I'm a little behind schedule today, so will give it a crack over the next 48 hours or so...

---

[HughesTooling]

If you save a design with a linked part then delete the linked part from the design the linked part will still be in use in a previous version of your design so you can't delete it.

So

In design A you insert B and save creating A version 1.

Later in the design you delete B at say A version5.

Now you can't delete B because versions of A in the history are still linked to B.

You need to even more careful if you use Remove as the link is still there in all versions.

The only way around this is to use Save As and create a new Version 1 of file A then delete the old A version 5 .

Mark

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the tip Mark, This seems to work for me.

Its a long way around so I hope one day the Fusion gear heads may provide us with a quicker solution.

---

@HughesTooling wrote:

If you save a design with a linked part then delete the linked part from the design the linked part will still be in use in a previous version of your design so you can't delete it.

So

In design A you insert B and save creating A version 1.

Later in the design you delete B at say A version5.

Now you can't delete B because versions of A in the history are still linked to B.

You need to even more careful if you use Remove as the link is still there in all versions.

The only way around this is to use Save As and create a new Version 1 of file A then delete the old A version 5 .

Mark

---

[RoboDLC]

I am a new user.  I have some basic drawings and experiments with no linked parts and no fancy things done. 

No project that I have saved will allow me to delete it.

None.

Everything that I have done so far (admittedly very little) is still there, un-deleteable.

Has anyone found a way to delete these permanent projects?

BTW, I don't know what A360 is, so I have not tried that dodge yet.

thanks,

DLC

[Aadithya01]

Hey @RoboDLC

See this below link on how to delete a project .. Hope this helps

http://autode.sk/2yjaDUv

If this Solution was useful please click  "Accept as Solutions"

[RoboDLC]

It gives the same error as Fusion360 does:

"Cannot delete selected data. Data is in use or relationships exist on selected data."

However, A360 says :

"This item does not reference any other designs."

and

"No related data available "

However, two projects that I did from tutorials deleted fine.  I think that I did these with help from a teacher or a tutorial, so I "signed off" Fusion 360.

I believe what happened in my early experiments was that I created projects by importing drawings from elsewhere.  After these did not display correctly I may have exited the program by just killing it, without signing out first.  Since there is no "File->Exit" menu option it wasn't obvious how to correctly exit the program.  By just killing the program while I was logged in I may have left the files in an indeterminate state, perpetually open.  Is there a way to correct that?

thanks,

DLC

[paul.clauss]

Hi @RoboDLC

Thanks for posting! Exiting Fusion without signing out should not cause any problems here - you can simply save the design and close Fusion, there is no "File>Exit" option. The only time that you need to log out when exiting Fusion is when you are working on a shared computer and you do not want others to be able to access the Fusion designs saved in your Data Panel/ to your cloud account.

We are aware of some issues in which the reference flags are being added to certain files that are not truly referenced by other designs - our development team is working to provide some better deletion tools in the future. In the meantime, I would recommend simply creating a "Trash" project folder and moving the designs you cannot currently delete to that folder to keep them out of your way and avoid confusion and frustration. This is a known issue and we apologize for any inconveniences it has caused you - please create a trash folder to which you can move the designs you have been unable to delete. 

[antswanmail]

Hi everyone,

I had this same problem and I found the following fix:

I moved the file which remained in use into a new folder. I then deleted the folder and the file was deleted with it.

Hope that helps!

[rbkyorem]

Have you found any new methods to overcome this issue. I am also creating Junk file to move files/designs that can not be deleted.

I don't want to go through other methods that consists of more than 2 3 steps... Save open save close clear cache... we should be able to delete with one click. 

[speed.rob]

I assume this is the case. But if so, why does it not show up in the "Used In" tab? It's a reasonable restriction, but the implementation is completely broken.