Windows 10: Deleted Folder iCloud Photos Still Showing In File Explorer After Being Deleted

Hello. I have been bothered for the past 2 hours about something that happened after uninstalling the iCloud app from the Microsoft Store. When you first open up the iCloud app, it adds 2 folders to OneDrive, iCloud Drive and iCloud Photos. I uninstalled the iCloud app today, but the iCloud photos folder was still left on my file explorer. So, the first thing I thought to do was go into OneDrive and delete the iCloud photos folder to get rid of it. After I did this, the folder is there but it won't open or go anywhere. I'm at a loss as to what to do. This app is broken. Images show the folder and what happens when I click it.





:)

 

MANY iCloud Photos icons appearing in Explorer file directory. More generated every day. Folders are empty. No way to delete the icons.

I want to THANK @JackDaniels1171 for posting a solution on a related thread that helped me figure this out. I've edited his comments a bit to help others who may be suffering from this same, very frustrating problem.

As noted in my original post above, every time I logged in, a new iCloud Photos icon appeared in the left pane of my File Explorer directory. When it got to 28 entries, I screamed "Enough!" Here's what I ended up doing to fix it.

• I uninstalled iCloud for Windows.
• I opened Regedit as Administrator.
• I searched the registry for "iCloud Photos", matching the whole string.
• The first result was located in this location.

[-HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\CLSID\

• This section of the registry contained many keys. There was one "iCloud Photos" key for each iCloud Photos folder appearing on the left side of my File Explorer directory listing, but there were also entries for
  other things that should be left as is.
  Be careful!
• I resized the Regedit window in order to see the entire key so that I didn't inadvertently delete something I meant to keep.
  
• In my case, there were 28 "iCloud Photos" key entries.
• I carefully deleted each "iCloud Photos" key (and sub-keys) and moved on to the next "iCloud Photos" key. Sometimes the next key in the registry was an "iCloud Photos" key, but if not, I pressed F3 to locate the next one.
  
• I kept careful track and deleted all 28 "iCloud Photos" keys in this section.
• I pressed F3 again to search for the next entry. It was found in this section of the registry.

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

• Like the previous section, this part of the registry included keys for iCloud Photos as well as
  other things.
• There was one "iCloud Photos" key in the registry for each iCloud Photos folder appearing in my File Explorer directory listing.
• I repeated the steps above to carefully delete each one.
• I did NOT press F3 after deleting the last entry in this section. Instead, I closed all the branches in Regedit and went to the third section of the registry directly.

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

• Like the other sections, this part of the registry included keys for iCloud Photos as well as
  other things.
• After carefully deleting all of the "iCloud Photos" key entries,
  I went to the fourth section of the registry directly.

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

• Like the other sections, this part of the registry included keys for iCloud Photos as well as
  other things.
• I looked at the lengthy registry ID keys that I did NOT delete in the section above. I found a corresponding entry for each one in the keys listed in this section.
• That left the "iCloud Photos" keys to be deleted. I counted them to make certain it was the same number that I had deleted in each of the previous three sections of the registry.
• I deleted ONLY the "iCloud Photos" keys. I was
  very careful NOT to delete the keys corresponding to the things I kept in the prior section of the registry.

• I exited Regedit and restarted my computer.
• I checked my File Explorer directory and noted with delight that all of the unwanted iCloud Photos folders were gone. Yay!
  

What I learned is this: For users who run
both OneDrive and iCloud for Windows, every time the computer starts, iCloud logs in and OneDrive creates a new iCloud Photos folder in the File Explorer directory. By uninstalling iCloud for Windows, I eliminated the source of the problem. (I have
better ways to back up and share my photos!) But, I still had to edit the registry to get rid of the accumulated pesky File Explorer directory entries.

All looks good now. Wherever you are, JackDaniels1171, THANK YOU!

 

Delete iCloud photos from file explorer

Hello everyone,

can some help me, how do i delete the icloud folders created in file explorer. I downloaded icloud for windows, had no luck accessing icloud photos.

decided to log out and uninstall icloud windows but left with these in the file explorer, that I really would like to delete.

look forward to hearing from you.

Thank you

 

Trouble deleting a folder

Thanks for the suggestion but it says "delete folder failed for E:\....." for each folder I try.

*Confused

Will I be forever stuck with these unnecessary folders? *Oh Well hwell: