delete var/lib/mysql folders after dropping database via mysql I am aware that you don't want to remove the innodb tables from /var/lib/mysql for a linux distro of mysql (I have Ver 14.14).  So I used the command
drop database mydb1; 
drop database mydb2; 
-- etc

but see that the folders mydb1 and mydb2 etc. are sill in /var/lib/mysql, and the .MYD, .MYI and .frm files are there in most cases.  Are the database folders safe to manually delete now?  I know the innodb files are very sensitive.
First, MySQL latest version is 8.x.x, so it's impossible for you to have 14.x, check that.
Second, maybe your data dir is not /var/lib/mysql. To check this variable run the following script and check the actual datadir for your instance.
mysql&gt; SHOW VARIABLES LIKE '%dir%';
&gt; +----------------------------+--------------------------------------------+
&gt; | Variable_name              | Value                                      |
&gt; +----------------------------+--------------------------------------------+
&gt; | basedir                    | /usr/local/mysql-max-4.0.13-pc-linux-i686/ |
&gt; | datadir                    | /usr/local/mysql/data/                     |

Also check for any errors when you run the DROP DATABASE sentence.