remove old folder (icloud photos) from file explorer side bar

Anonymous
2020-05-11T02:50:55+00:00

so I'm completely frustrated that I cant delete this stupid icloud photo's folder that has duplicated itself on the file explorer side bar.  Ive deleted the folder source so now it errors when you click the folder and I cant delete the shortcut which I never wanted in the first place and I have icloud photos disabled in icloud so now I'm totally lost.  other than that my system is completely clean and fairly recent install so I'm gonna be real disappointed if i have to do another reinstall for something this stupid.  wish i could show a screen shot but this is not the big icoud photos in the main section its a smaller folder on the side just under the quick access that's now duplicated itself 9 times.

Windows for home | Windows 10 | Settings

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Anonymous
2020-06-15T23:59:00+00:00

https://github.com/svenkle/google-drive-add-to-explorer/blob/develop/Remove%20Google%20Drive.reg

This specific link gave me the steps necessary to solve the problem for me.  What I wound up doing I first uninstalled the iCloud app from settings apps.  Then I went into my one drive settings right click on the one drive cloud icon on the taskbar select settings then from there the backup tab.  On that specific tab I selected manage backup, pressed stop backup on the pictures option and closed that selection window by pressing the X on the top right and ok on the bottom of the backup tab.

Then while keeping my web browser on the above link open I opened Regedit and ran as administrator that specific link gives instructions regarding the keys for removing google drive but they work also for iCloud Photos.  First I searched the registry for iCloud Photos matching the whole string, the first results were on this location.

[-HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\CLSID\

There will be one key per iCloud Photos folder on the file explorer left side I resized Regedit in my case in order to see the entire key I had to delete I deleted the key and then.  I pressed F3 to get the next one, I had to do four deletions in that part of Regedit as I had four iCloud photos folders on my file explorer.  After deleting the fourth key I pressed F3 again and my next result was on this section.

[-HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\Wow6432Node\CLSID\

These part of the keys {81539FE6-33C7-4CE7-90C7-1C7B8F2F2D41} were identical to the ones I had just deleted in the previous section.  So I deleted four keys in this section as I said before I had four iCloud Photos folders.  For the next part I closed all the branches in Regedit and went to the third section directly.

-HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Desktop\NameSpace\

Once there I checked each key and I had one key that had one drive which I left untouched and the rest had iCloud Photos I deleted four keys there, this  {81539FE6-33C7-4CE7-90C7-1C7B8F2F2D41} portion of the keys repeated themselves in the fourth and last location which is this location

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\HideDesktopIcons\NewStartPanel

I accessed it directly and deleted the same four keys, there will also be one key for one drive which I didn't delete just like on the previous step.

Finally I exited Regedit, in my personal case I restared my computer checked my file explorer and the iCloud Photos folders were all gone.  I then reinstalled the iCloud app again restarted the computer twice and there is now only one iCloud Photos folder on file explorer.

The root cause of this problem is that if One Drive syncs the pictures folder, and for people who like me have both One Drive and iCloud every time the computer starts iCloud logs in again and One Drive creates an new iCloud pictures folder on file explorer and therefore those of us who use both applications need to make sure that One Drive does not sync the pictures folder prior to installing the iCloud app. That's why I started stopping the backup with one drive settings first.  Uninstalled iCloud as my second step, deleted the keys on regedit and then reinstalled iCloud.

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  1. Anonymous
    2020-06-17T16:34:03+00:00

    I dont have DropBox but if you right click in the icloud app on the taskbar

    and then click on iCloud settings, you will see the option of where you want your iCloud pictures folder its the photos option..

    But remember in my personal case I uninstalled iCloud so that I could fix the register keys and stopped syncing the pictures folder to One Drive before I reinstalled iCloud.

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  2. Anonymous
    2020-06-17T16:02:09+00:00

    Looks like this might be my issue also? Except I'm not using OneDrive at all.  Instead, I have moved the location of my "Pictures" from the default "users" folder location - into my DropBox.  The idea being that all my photos would then be backed up / accessible via DropBox.   Not sure how to rectify this since I do want to keep the "Pictures" folder inside of DropBox, but likely not the iCloud Photos.  I don't see where iCloud Photos provides a way to specify the location of the iCloud Photos folder though?

    I could move the entire Pictures folder out of Dropbox, back to the default Windows location, and then just move all my other photos over to Dropbox. and then have my iOS photos saved to iCloud.  Kind of annoying to have to do that.

    Anybody else have this same issue (Dropbox aspect)?  Any ideas on what the specific fix would be?  I'm up to 19 instances of iCloud Photos in Explorer.  The Apple support guys had no clue what to do.

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  3. Anonymous
    2020-06-17T04:09:49+00:00

    Agreed iCloud / OneDrive / Windows 10 issue that persists with 2004.  I tried to stop the iCloud backup with OneDrive through OneDrive settings but OneDrive began throwing synch errors with iCloud Photos and one other iCloud related file. I logged into OneDrive through my browser and discovered it had created a new (empty) folder online that wasn't mirrored in my OneDrive File Folder and it was continuing to try to synch the files despite my settings. I deleted the empty folder directly from OneDrive cloud as part of my solution. Though I think everyone's having slightly different challenges.

    Since fixing the issue with Windows, I've not reinstalled the iCloud app as I don't feel it is compatible and I don't want to have the same problems after the time spent trying to fix it all.

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  4. Anonymous
    2020-06-17T00:28:35+00:00

    I have followed your instructions for removing the duplicate folders and that worked!

    I'd say the difference between your situation and mine is that I wasn't using OneDrive to backup my Photos folder. This computer is a work PC using commercial OneDrive which gets to backup Desktop, Documents and Photos.

    Instead I sync down some personal folders for working on personal things and I had iCloud's photos folder syncing to a folder inside my personal OneDrive. That folder was syncing to the cloud. Sad that won't work anymore.

    Truth be told, the iCloud app for the PC wasn't working at uploading photos to its own cloud. Had to buy another software to get photos onto my phone last year.

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