hard drive - How do I delete programs that dont exist according to windows explorer

Windows 10, I force closed steam while it was writing to the hard disk and now all the games i had in the steamapp/common on my C:/ drive are gone.

BUT

Steam is still downloading synced data from the cloud for these games, but to install them i need to free up space

BUT i cant free up space because Windows Explorer doesn't see them...

BUT Recuva finds them.

BUT it ignores them regardless of filter settings....

SO now, i have only a few megabytes of free space on my c drive and i need to someone clear up 200 gigabytes of data that i cant clear up because the files dont exist.

I'm assuming I'm royally donefor and I'm ready to just give up. I was planning on getting an ssd anyways.

TLDR:
- force closed steam while it was writing to disk

• steam/common folder is "empty"




• file space is still occupied by programs that "dont exist"




• recuva ignores the files




• cant free up enough space to have steam check for installed games




• need to delete files that "dont exist"




• steam client cant send support ticket for whatever reason

Turns out steam moved the steamapps folder into the steamui folder. steam is weird. Hello future people trying to fix this! check to see if some other steam directory folders are a bit too big...