Karl, There are a couple of (free?) utilities you might try. Trashit, Delete It, or others you may find searching "trash"... They should be available at www.versiontracker.com. Good luck. Rick > I've > changed ownership to my name in the get info. 'permissions' window and > even tried re-naming the file with .xls, doc. and .pdf but I can't get > it to 'trash'.