Git Checkout warning: unable to unlink files, permission denied

In my first encounter with this error my user had rights to "write" to the file but not the containing directory. Check the permissions of the directory containing the file.

I usually see that kind of error when there is a process not releasing the handle of those files.

Make sure nothing is running, and then try your checkout again.

Note: it can also be related with the way Git has been installed (on Windows, UAC can generate problem if msysgit is installed in C:\Program or C:\Program Files, see "msysgit - sh.exe - fork: Permission denied - Vista 64 bit" and comment 2 of issue 437)

Note: as illustrated below, a common other cause of the problem is rights issue on the directory (wrong owner), not necessarily on the file that can't be unlinked.

"Unlink" essentially means "delete file" in this case.

This error is not caused by git itself. You should have similar errors deleting those files manually, in a command line or file explorer.