How Do I Remove iCloud Photos Folders from Sidebar?

Hello all,

After the latest update to the now Windows Store-exclusive iCloud app (first Nvidia with their Control Panel and now this...ugh), I have multiple iCloud Photos folders in my Explorer sidebar and my OCD is going wild. Does anyone know how I'd go about removing them? The only solutions I've found online have been for removing the folder as shown in pic 1 (edits to reg under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\MyComputer\NameSpace\xxxx), whereas my issue is removing the folders shown in pic 2.

Pic 1: Not my Issue


Pic 2: My Issue


Running 1909.

Any help would be greatly, greatly appreciated.

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Never mind! Figured it out. Had to experiment and edit with a few different entries associated with the phrase "iCloud Photos".

Hi Laggy,

I have got exactly the same problem as you had! You solved it and it would be incredibly helpful to know what you did.

I get a new 'iCloud Photos' folder in the navigation bar every time I open and close iCloud for Outlook on my PC (Windows 10 1909 and latest iCloud as of 10/05/20). So far I have 11!

I'm guessing you found the registry entry to delete but whatever you did, I'd be grateful if you could help me!

Hey PP356,

I should've posted the solution, huh? Sorry about that!

You're going to want to open regedit, search "iCloud Photos", and press F3 until you start finding entries that look like the one pictured below and changing the values for "System.IsPinnedToNamespaceTree" from 1 to 0 (make sure to make a backup first).



Make note of the keys you change because you're going to need to do the same thing for the same keys found under the WOW6432Node folder in the same directory.

In my case:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{2FDDC96F-EACE-4D1B-A2C9-0B2BC4FCC331}
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\WOW6432Node\CLSID\{2FDDC96F-EACE-4D1B-A2C9-0B2BC4FCC331}

Rinse and repeat until you've modified all but one entry and that's pretty much it!

(After making the edits, you may either have to restart Windows Explorer or reboot entirely for the changes to take effect.)

Thanks for such a quick and detailed response Laggy! I think you're the only person to posted anything about this problem anywhere, but I'm sure others are going to find it valuable. I'm out this evening but will dive in tomorrow and get it sorted. Stay safe out there.

You're welcome! Yeah, I was surprised I couldn't find anything about it either so hopefully this helps others like yourself. Likewise!

I went through and removed all the entries as described, but there they all are again...
At a bit of a loss now I'm afraid.

Just wanted to let you know I really appreciate help with this problem. THis must be a new thing since these posts are so recent.

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Just wanted to let you know I really appreciate help with this problem. THis must be a new thing since these posts are so recent.

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Harry Mcgovern said:

I went through and removed all the entries as described, but there they all are again...
At a bit of a loss now I'm afraid.

Make sure you do the ROOT part. It didn't work for me also till I did that part.

Harry Mcgovern said:

I went through and removed all the entries as described, but there they all are again...
At a bit of a loss now I'm afraid.

Same here!

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Should I uninstall "iCloud for Windows" and re-install it?

Worked first time - had to cycle through the entries a few times to ensure they were all (but one) changed to hide. Couldn't find anything about it online, so grateful it was posted here. Now I thankfully don't have to scroll down through 30 junk folders to access my files! Many thanks

DustynB said:

Just wanted to let you know I really appreciate help with this problem. THis must be a new thing since these posts are so recent.

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Just wanted to let you know I really appreciate help with this problem. THis must be a new thing since these posts are so recent.

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Make sure you do the ROOT part. It didn't work for me also till I did that part.

I tried the same several times but it stilll did not work. I found this:
https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/...5-57723dbdb0eb[/URL]
and after I also deleted the other entries described in this answer it finally worked!