How to remove old OneDrive for Business folders from my PC?

If you recently had a new job within a new organization or migrated from an existing Office 365 tenant to a new one, or you simply just want to clean up your PC from previously synchronized files & folders, then this article is for you.

When a user synchronizes OneDrive for Business, with File Explorer, a folder is created locally and can be recognized by the name format of the folder: 'OneDrive - Company Name'.

Today we will go through the steps you need to perform in order to delete this folder and synchronize a new one.

1. Unlink you PC

To do so, in the bottom-right corner of your PC's desktop, you can find the OneDrive for Business instance by clicking on the arrow to show the hidden icons (if OneDrive for Business (ODB) icon is not already displayed).

a. Right-click on the ODB icon, this will display the ODB configuration menu, then hit 'Settings'.

b. This will open the configuration settings of ODB, make sure that you have selected the tab 'Account', then choose 'Stop Sync'.

c. Confirm that you want to Unlink your account from your PC.

Locally available files will remain on this device while online files will be removed.

2. Delete 'Locally available files' 

As explained in the previous step when you unlink your ODB account from your PC, 2 options are possible:

> If you have synchronized your files with local availability, those will be kept in your PC even if you disable the synchronization.

> The cloud-only available files will be automatically removed, they were never really stored locally anyways.

To make sure that everything has been removed and cleaned up we need to perform a few more steps:

a. Delete the local folder:

Generally, ODB synchronization folder is under C:\Users\'your user' and will be named using this format: 'OneDrive - Old Company Name'

Navigate to this location C:\Users\'your user' and find the folder named 'OneDrive - Old Company Name'.

Select the folder and remove it from your PC (right-click > delete)

b. Make sure your SharePoint Libraries are also removed:

Often, when a user synchronizes his/her ODB folder, we might find some SharePoint Online Sites Folders synchronized as well.

To remove them look for the folder with the icon as shown below, delete it as well:

c. Confirm that no ODB instances are running currently on your device:

To do so, just go back to the right-bottom corner and make sure that no ODB icon is available.

3. Synchronize your new company folders:

At this stage, your old files have been removed from your File Explorer and you are ready to synchronize your new OneDrive for Business account.

a. To do so, go to https://www.portal.office.com and sign in with your new account, then go to OneDrive for Business and click on 'Sync'.

b. Follow the steps and you're ready to go.

c. If you want to synchronize your new SharePoint Online files, then navigate to the site's library you're a member of and hit the button 'Sync':

Reproduce this step for as many sites as you need to.

Now, all your previously synchronized files have been removed and you're ready to use your new ODB and SPO files.

If you have any questions after reading this article, please send an email to our support: service@bemopro.com