Accidentally removed moveCollection during an Resource move to another resource group

There is currently no supported customer-side method to cancel or force-abort an ARM resource move operation once it has started. During a move, Azure locks both the source and destination resource groups to prevent changes while the operation is being processed. The resources themselves remain operational, but management operations are blocked until the move completes or times out.

Since you can already see the resources in the destination resource group, I would recommend first verifying whether the move actually completed successfully:

1. Check whether the resources exist only in the destination resource group.
2. Review the Activity Log for the move operation and look for any failed, timed-out, or still-running operations.
3. Avoid initiating another move operation while the resource groups remain in the"Moving resources" state.
4. Do not attempt to delete and recreate the affected resource groups.

Azure Resource Manager allows a move operation to run for up to four hours. During this period, the source and destination resource groups can remain locked. If the operation exceeds the allowed duration, Azure typically releases the locks and updates the move status accordingly.

Also note that even when a move operation reports a timeout, the resources themselves may already have been moved successfully. Microsoft recommends verifying the actual resource locations before taking any further action. [learn.microsoft.com]

If this was performed using Azure Resource Mover rather than the standard Resource Group → Move experience, the behaviour is different because Azure Resource Mover maintains move collections and supports actions such as Discard in specific move states.

Bottom line: There is no force-unlock or abort operation available for a standard ARM resource move. Wait for the operation to complete or time out, review the Activity Log for its final status, and verify where the resources currently reside before attempting any further changes.

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Hello @Adi C

If the Move Collection was deleted while the Resource Mover operation was still in progress, avoid manually removing the Microsoft.Migrate metadata or resource-group state.

Normally, Resource Mover provides Discard for resources in CommitPending/CommitFailed, which returns them to MovePending, and you can then remove them from the move collection. However, because the Move Collection itself has already been deleted, that normal cleanup workflow may no longer be available.

First, check the Activity Log on both resource groups and the affected resources to confirm whether an ARM move operation is actually still running or has failed. Also verify that the resources now exist in the intended destination RG and are operational.

If the portal continues showing “Moving resources” after the Move Collection is gone, open an Azure Support case for Azure Resource Mover and ask Microsoft to clear/reconcile the orphaned move operation on the backend. Include the deleted Move Collection name/resource ID, source and destination RGs, affected resource IDs, timestamps, and correlation IDs from the Activity Log.

Don't recreate a Move Collection with the same name expecting it to resume the old transaction; the new collection would be a different Resource Mover orchestration state.

Reference: Microsoft - Remove resources from a Resource Mover move collection

Since the orchestration metadata was deleted mid-operation, Microsoft Support is the safest route if the ARM resource groups remain stuck after the operation has had time to settle.

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