Solved Default installation of OneDrive and clean uninstall thereafter

I am sharing an easy and clean (and the most radical) way to NOT use OneDrive, although non-believers may not want to believe the procedure below, LOL. Anyway, back up your data beforehand if you already have data on your computer.

The following was done with a Lenovo laptop with W11 Home.

1) 'Reset this PC' > Remove everything > Setup as new PC > Log into MS account > there is NO setup screen related to OneDrive at all and the OneDrive app is installed on the computer by default > File Explorer navigation pane looks like below right after setup has finished, notice the OneDrive icon before clicking on it, there is no personal name in the label.


2) Clicking on the OneDrive icon makes the OneDrive app on the computer sync to the OneDrive in the cloud, notice that the label changes to (blanked out name) - Personal


3) In preparation of cleanly uninstalling OneDrive, turn off OneDrive sync using the tutorial on this site ...
... and uninstall OneDrive in the 'Installed Apps' control panel > note that the OneDrive icon is now completely missing from the File Explorer navigation pane ...


4) ... but you see many shortcuts 'Where are my files' pointing to your OneDrive in the cloud (you can also access your OneDrive in the cloud with a browser)


A less radical solution than uninstalling OneDrive altogether is to rely on turning on/off OneDrive sync as per the above tutorial, your choice.

I have no Microsoft account. I just uninstalled it in Settings > apps> installed apps. Never see it again. It's one of my setups after a a Win 11 install. Just go through the apps and remove anything not useful to me.

BobD said:

I have no Microsoft account. I just uninstalled it in Settings > apps> installed apps. Never see it again. It's one of my setups after a a Win 11 install. Just go through the apps and remove anything not useful to me.

Click to expand...

Yeah, you are lucky. But nowadays, MS is pushing very hard for just about everyone to have a MS account, and frankly, I find having a MS account useful, so useful that I use several MS accounts to organize my small stable of computers.
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BTW, on my W10 computer, the procedure that I described in my OP is very similar but not identical.

When I upgraded from W8.1 to W10 years ago, even with a MS account, there was an option to NOT set up OneDrive (which I selected) but OneDrive was still installed. However, there was no syncing going on (no 'infiltration' as someone put it LOL) so the OneDrive installation did not bother me and I did not bother with the OneDrive installation either.

But now, out of curiosity I have uninstalled OneDrive via 'Programs and Features' and the result is even cleaner than with W11, there are no shortcuts planted in the user folders after the uninstall (of course you can delete the shortcuts in the W11 user folders too)

If you want to re-install, OneDrive is available in MS Store for free

Thank you Haydon and all

I have spent nearly 3 weeks trying to get my data across and if I have to start all over again, then I would prefer to go back to Win10 or a non-MS Operating system...

Do you think that I might be able to delete that folder in SafeMode?

@qim I am aware that you started several threads on the issue, hence I suggested this approach which gives you a clean computer (as if OneDrive never existed on your computer)

But it is your computer, and you decide what you will do, good luck