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How to Remove OneDrive from the File Explorer Sidebar in Windows 10

How to Remove OneDrive from the File Explorer Sidebar in Windows 10

We happen to think that Microsoft’s online storage and syncing service, OneDrive, is a super useful service. After all, it’s available on most major desktop and mobile platforms, including Xbox, and offers massive storage capacity for a relatively affordable price, especially when bundled as part of an Office 365 subscription.

OneDrive enables users to save their files and photos then access them easily using any device from any location, which is very useful for most computer users who use multiple devices.

But OneDrive, as a home-grown Microsoft project, is basically foisted on all Windows users, regardless of how they feel about the service.

In Windows 10, for example, the OneDrive taskbar icon bothers users to sign in, and the OneDrive name and logo appear to be permanent fixtures in the File Explorer sidebar.
one drive file explorer windows 10
As much as we love OneDrive, the app shouldn’t be taking up valuable space in the Windows UI if a user has no interest in the service. Thankfully, there’s registry tweak that can quickly remove OneDrive from your File Explorer sidebar, and it even leaves the primary service intact in the event that you wish to sign up or log in at a later date.

So please read on to find out how to remove OneDrive from File Explorer in Windows 10.

As mentioned, we need to make this change in the Windows Registry.

For those unfamiliar with the Windows Registry Editor, simply bring up a Windows ‘Run’ window by pressing Windows Key-R on your keyboard, type regedit in the “Open” box, and press Enter.

Alternatively, you can use Windows 10 Search or Cortana to find regedit and launch the program directly.
windows 10 run regedit
Once you’re in the Windows Registry Editor, use the folder hierarchy on the left to navigate to the following location:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTCLSID{018D5C66-4533-4307-9B53-224DE2ED1FE6}

The CLSID folder is arranged in alphanumeric order, but it’s huge and contains hundreds of entries through which to sort. Finding the entry we’re looking for by hand isn’t too difficult, but if you’re having trouble, you can always head to Edit > Find in the Windows Registry menu, copy and paste the final key, and then have the Registry Editor take you right to the correct path.

Note, however, that the string of letters and numbers at the end of the path is, as suggested by its parent folder, a CLSID, which in Windows 10 is a globally unique identifier (GUID) for certain programs and services in Windows.

This aforementioned string, therefore, appears several times throughout the Windows Registry, but if you start your search from the top of the Registry hierarchy, the correct search result should be the first entry.
regedit onedrive windows 10
After navigating to the location above, look on the right side of the window. You’ll see a DWORD entry labeled System.IsPinnedToNameSpaceTree set to a value of 1 (one).

To remove OneDrive from File Explorer in Windows 10, go ahead and double-click on that DWORD and set its value to 0 (zero).
remove onedrive file explorer regedit
Click OK to save your changes and then close the Registry Editor.

In our tests, we didn’t even have to log out to see that OneDrive was now gone from our File Explorer sidebar. However, some users report that a full log-out or reboot was necessary in order to see the change.

Therefore, if you’re still seeing OneDrive in your File Explorer sidebar even after making the change described above, try closing all of your programs (save your work first!) and rebooting your PC.
remove onedrive file explorer windows 10
As we mentioned at the top of this how-to article, this process to remove OneDrive from File Explorer doesn’t disable OneDrive in Windows 10; it merely gets the service out of your way.

Getting OneDrive out of the way is crucial if you or your managed users need to focus on another online storage and syncing service.  For example, if you’re trying to encourage your office to move to Dropbox or Google Drive, you don’t want them faced with the temptation to save files to OneDrive.

However, if you actually do want to use OneDrive, either now or in the future, the service will still function normally; it just won’t be pinned to your File Explorer sidebar.

If you want to uninstall Onedrive altogether, check out this TechJunke tutorial: How To Disable and Uninstall OneDrive in Windows 10.

Did you remove OneDrive in the File Explorer Sidebar on your Windows 10 PC? If so, tell us how it went in the comments below!

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30 thoughts on “How to Remove OneDrive from the File Explorer Sidebar in Windows 10”

Roger says:
I have Win 10 Home Ver 1903 and can not find that key or the sword
Jonathan says:
I found it with this key {04271989-C4D2-AADA-BD5E-50E79C79C26F}
Jeff says:
Thanks! This looks to be the OneDrive business shortcut and the one above is for OneDrive personal.
Connie says:
You Sync me and I didn’t want my two computers synced!!!! I don’t want to own an Apple computer, stop trying to be them….if you were nice you would NOT let it be running, but you would have to turn it on for YOURSELF…
NOW I have lost all my favorites on my laptop, and I had to change the screen saver and I keep having to get rid of the One Drive every time I start up the computer.
I’ve already figured out how to stop updating me all the time. I don’t have time at the moment to read this whole webpage so I will come back to it later and HOPE it gets RID of the One Drive for good, so many apps I don’t want from Microsoft, used to be able to uninstall, can’t anymore, I want SIMPLE!!!!!
Viktoriya says:
Thank you so much! The steps are well explained and simple!
Nate S says:
I had a onedrive from an Office365 account that wouldn’t go away.
Found it inside of the same directory but with the following name {3CD612AF-5548-4694-9626-5783B232E1FE}
Changed the DWORD to 0 successfully.
mssucls says:
why cant microsoft ever do anything right. you can uninstall this crappy software but the thing is still there on the side bar. also if youre going to copy features from other OS’ at least do it right. god they suck.
Rob says:
This registry edit does not work for my Windows 10 Professional. I have an orphaned OneDrive icon in the file manager and another one on my desktop. Having uninstalled one-Drive some time ago (long before trying this registry hack), I suspect that the solution is failing because there was no program there prior to that. The root problem, however, is Microsoft attempting to take extraordinary means to push choices on us.
When I get some time, I will re-install OneDrive, then attempt the registry hack, then uninstall OneDrive. Who knows!
Nilesh Patel says:
thank you … job done .. so easy tric
nigel coldwell says:
Thanks for this.
I had uninstalled OneDrve, and it left the thing behind, when i hovered over it, it caused it to look for onedrive and through an error.
Jazz says:
Disgusting how all of these “how to remove” articles about various annoyances from Windows 10 involve having to power-user one’s way into the registry. I’m convinced they intentionally make it this difficult so the average user won’t bother to remove it…
Sebi Rognean says:
Thanks!
Darkside_Hero says:
Works like a charm!
Morgoth Bauglir says:
Thank you! A million times, thank you!
LauW says:
Thanks, i finally decided to leave my dear Win7 behind and pass to Win7 on my main PC, and that OneDrive sh*t was annyoing
Tina Kister says:
Didn’t work. It’s still there.
Bob B. says:
I finally got rid of it by deleting {018D5C66-4533-4307-9B53-224DE2ED1FE6} from HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionExplorerDesktopNameSpace
Mikula Beutl says:
that did it for me too
ConanSaga says:
Thanks a lot, that finally removed it for me as well!
Marilyn says:
THAT worked!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! None of the other recommendations did!
Carlos says:
This worked for me as well, although the folder had a different name ({04271989-C4D2-2DD2-C5A1-F20F8B8D1EC3}). Thank you sir for your input!!!
vladimir says:
That did the trick :)
jonny says:
working, nice tutorial :)
cooki3smonst4r says:
thank you!!!
Les Weiler says:
Had already “uninstalled” onedrive, still had to delete the folder from my user folder… this proved to be the final step to remove it. Thank you so much!!
Tomasz Płudowski says:
Thank you a lot for this step-by-step answer!
Gustavo says:
Thank U !!
Bill Wyszomirski says:
Didn’t work for me either! Did the 32 and 64 bit and nothing. Reinstalled one drive fresh from Microsoft and redid everything every which way. Now I see one drive in TWO places on explorer!!
uɐʎıɹ says:
Thank U
Mark Berry says:
Doesn’t work for me. Recent clean install of Win10 Pro x64 1607. Yes, I changed the Wow6432Node instance as well.
DonCoffin says:
If this solution is “easy”, I’d hate to see a difficult solution. For starters, if this
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTCLSID{018D5C66-4533-4307-9B53-224DE2ED1FE6}
is on my computer anywhere, I cannot find it.
My objections to OneDrive: (1) that it will not save files where I want them to be, and when I am working on something major, I save frequently. So sometimes have multiple files with the same name in different stages of the work. And I never know where the most recent version is. (2) that it keeps telling me that another user has modified a file and not available to me–when there is no other user.
Even if OneDrive is excellent (I don’t think it is), it is impeding my work, and I cannot seem to find a transparent way to disable it.
DonCoffin says:
Also, I would not call $70 a year “cheap.” I have 10 TB of local storage…
Pavlaras says:
Also on: “HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT/WOW6432Node/CLSID/{018D5C66-4533-4307-9B53-224DE2ED1FE6}” , change that to 0.
BeaveVillage says:
Didn’t have to reboot, nice. Still works on Windows 10 August 2016 Anniversary Edition.
Dr Faustens says:
Yeah, pretty worthless “solution”. From the comments here, seems sometimes it works sometimes it does not. I have Windows Pro and it does not work. I have absolutely no need for OneDrive unless MS is using it mine data from my computer.
Desender says:
I completely removed onedrive before doing this. It’s still on the file explorer after changing the registry though…
Zach says:
Although this removes the personal onedrive from explorer, you can still see it when prompting to save a file to a certain location. Any other keys that need to be edited in order to remove the personal folder from explorer during these circumstances?
Denis Gomes Franco says:
I did this trick right now and it vanished from the Windows Explorer windows AND File>Save dialogs in desktop apps.
Before that I noticed, however, that UWP apps behave differently: they show its own OneDrive icon in File>Save dialogs, which basically ’embeds’ the whole OneDrive UWP app inside the dialog. Quite nice if you ask me.
DB Z/S For Life says:
Worked like a charm. Thank you!
David Castro says:
Thanks so much! This “push one drive in peoples face” method backfired for them in my case because One Drive for business is for some reason a separate program so i had two permanently attached One Drive folders: my business account and my personal account. this hack got rid of the personal one drive folder and strangely it didn’t just not need to reboot, it instantly disappeared from an already open explorer window. If only all registry hacks where this easy.
Lee Hughes says:
same here!
Stealth Way says:
AWESOME!!
I wish I could go with this Netbook/Ultrabook back to Windows 7 but I guess the Driver do not exits.
Win10 definitely 2 steps behind 7
Jared Johns says:
I appreciate this so much!!! It bothers me that Windows 10 became a Microsoft cyber-rape, and even after continues to throw various services that I don’t personally use (adware).

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Jim Tanous

Jul 27, 2019

676 Articles Published

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