I’ve been trying to clean my stash of 27k+ fonts. Really frustrating that “delete from disk” does not eliminate the actual font. When I first started fontbase I used the “add folder” function instead of “add watched folder”, which was a mistake, because this created the eternally undeletable font folder instead of one I can actually edit. I have since moved the root folder destination from its default destination (c: drive) to another drive (d: drive), which has then also created another copy of undeletable fonts. I thought by doing this I could delete the old one and start fresh. However now I cannot delete either folder in the C or D drive. No matter how many restarts or using revo uninstaller to try and clean uninstall everything, these folders are just… permanently unremovable.
Would appreciate help if possible. I do not want to keep propagating copies of my 27k font folder… which I now have 3.
I have tried deleting from inside of the app as well, but of course because its in the permanent collection, It doesn’t really do anything except make it invisible in the app. Obviously with the quantity of fonts, it’s sort of not time efficient to manually one by one try and delete installed fonts through the normal windows font way either.
I can’t even system restore to before I had fontbase so I think all the registries are stuck. I’ve also tried installing iobit unlocker and another file unlocker, to which it seems to tell me the folder is being used by the system. Or rather, some system fonts are somehow inside this fontbase folder and is being used by my browsers and everything else. Regardless if I end all tasks using the file/font/folder it refuses. If I try and force it, it shuts down my entire computer in an error.
Hello @salteddivide, thank you for your post and welcome to the forum
Very sorry
FontBase itself does not lock the Root folder in any way. So the only FontBase-related reason for the folder to refuse deletion would be if FontBase is running, thus using the current Root folder. If FontBase is closed (not just hidden to the tray and still running in the background), then there is absolutely no way FontBase can block the ability to delete fonts or folders.
What you’ve mentioned about installed fonts used it browser etc might be a hint - have you by any chance added the system Fonts folder into FontBase? If so, this might have confused the OS.
If you navigate to one of the extra folder copies you don’t need anymore and try to delete some fonts or folders inside of it, as opposed to deleting the entire Root folder copy, does that not work as well?
In the very beginning of me downloading fontbase, I did add the system fonts folder, which I do think is why it got confused. But ever since I realised we’re not supposed to, I have moved the root folder elsewhere. Regardless if I shut down fontbase (end task) it seems the extra fonts are seemingly still being used by the system (checked with file unlocker). I have tried to delete the temporary font cache as well. Even if I’m trying to delete a random font that isn’t important (not an original system font) it seems I’m also unable to, whether its from the original root fontbase folder, the 2nd fontbase folder I made, or the third folder, which is the folder I originally added as “add folder” instead of “watched folder”. I can delete from none of these.
Thank you for the quick reply @salteddivide
There definitely should be a way, even though, regrettably, at the moment I’m not sure I can provide a clear-cut answer as to how to do this.
Have you perhaps already tried checking access rights (permissions) on the folders and files inside the extra copies? Are you trying to remove these extra copies using admin privileges? In addition, have you already had any luck in contacting Microsoft support with regard to this issue?
One more thing to try would be to:
make sure FontBase is not set to launch on system startup;
restart your PC;
check if the files you’re trying to delete are still used by the system.
If they are used by the system, then finding which other application is using them or which part of the OS is using them exactly could give a lead as to how to resolve this.
