When you try to uninstall Google Drive from your computer, you may get an error dialog like this: ‘Another application has exclusive access to the file C:\Users\[username]\AppData\Local\Google\Drive\lockfile’ . Please shut down all other applications, then click Retry.’, and the dialog offers cancel and retry options (check the screenshot below). Closing other open applications and clicking ‘Retry’ doesn’t help, let us see how to fix this.
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Fixing Google Drive’s ‘Another application has exclusive access to the file’ error
1. Click on ‘Cancel’ button in the dialog and restart your computer.
2. After the restart, right click on the Google Drive icon in the system tray and select ‘Quit Google Drive’.
3. Now without opening any browsers or applications, open Control Panel and uninstall Google Drive, this time it will – this worked for me.
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Note: When Google Drive is syncing your files, allow it to complete or select ‘Pause’ for the uninstall process to go smoothly without getting errors like this in the middle.
Has this helped you? Have you encountered an error like this during the uninstall of drive? What you’ve done then? Let me know in the comments.