Is there a way to remove an existing SharePoint (Online) file lock?

Question

We are getting the locked for shared use message when trying to upload/checkout a file in a SharePoint library.

The user that is not online at the moment. I tried removed her sharing permissions on the file and its still shows she is editing it (upper right corner of the document).

Is there a way to completely remove existing sharing locks on a file so we can upload a new version of the file?

Ideally we would like way to do this with the UI. But any ideas how remove all existing locks with code on the API would also be helpful.

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I found that it was not easy to remove the lock cleanly. Basically the only way to remove the type of we experienced was to delete the file and re-add

Answer 1

Easiest way to do this is to delete the file then restore from recycle bin.

Answer 2

I was once able to resolve this by forcing them to sign out of all sessions (Admin->Users->Active Users) - Your mileage may vary and it sucks for the user.

Checking out / in seems an outdated way to handle things unless you have a specific reason. Curious to hear more. -Shane