Removing the OneDrive folder from your Desktop in File Explorer
I don’t use OneDrive at all – I have a DropBox account I’ve very happy with – so I uninstalled it from my Windows 10 machine using the commands:
taskkill /f /im OneDrive.exe %SystemRoot%\SysWOW64\OneDriveSetup.exe /uninstall
Unfortunately this left behind a “OneDrive” folder in the tree in File Explorer, and most of the “solutions” on the internet don’t actually seem to solve it. I have managed to get rid of it though, so I thought I’d share the solution!
- Windows key + R, and type: RegEdit.exe <enter>.
- Ctrl + F, and search for: {018D5C66-4533-4307-9B53-224DE2ED1FE6}.
- You should find the key: HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{018D5C66-4533-4307-9B53-224DE2ED1FE6}.
Inside this is a value System.IsPinnedToNameSpaceTree – change it to 0. - Search again, you should find the key: HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\WOW6432Node\CLSID\{018D5C66-4533-4307-9B53-224DE2ED1FE6}.
Inside this is a value System.IsPinnedToNameSpaceTree – change it to 0. - Keep searching further, until you find this key: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Desktop\NameSpace\{018D5C66-4533-4307-9B53-224DE2ED1FE6}.
Click the key on the left side and delete it from the NameSpace folder. - In my case it wasn’t there, but also check: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Desktop\NameSpace to see if there is a key named {018D5C66-4533-4307-9B53-224DE2ED1FE6} and if there is, delete it.
In my case, once I deleted that final node, OneDrive immediately vanished from my File Explorer tree. You may have to close and re-open it, or worst-case restart your machine.
Hopefully this will help someone else with the same problem!
