Solved remove iCloud Photos from the File Explorer navigation pane

How do I remove iCloud Photos from the File Explorer navigation pane? I have an old registry file that deletes an item from HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\MyComputer\NameSpace, but that item no longer exists, and there's no obvious replacement for it under that key.

Bump. Anyone figure this out?

So far as I know, all the things above This PC in the Navigation panel are Pinned shortcuts to the actual folder or file, should be able to right-click and Unpin one or more. Right-click and check the Properties.

Berton said:

So far as I know, all the things above This PC in the Navigation panel are Pinned shortcuts to the actual folder or file, should be able to right-click and Unpin one or more. Right-click and check the Properties.

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You're thinking about things that go in "Quick Access". This is not one of them. In fact, its context menu has an item "Pin to Quick Access". The File Explorer UI provides no way to remove it.

save as .reg file and run. restart explorer if necessary

Remove iCloud Photos from Nav Pane

Remove iCloud Drive from Nav Pane

Thanks, works, no restart of Explorer necessary, Microsoft Photos integration undisturbed. I did find that the GUID is different, "{B465C167-18F2-41C5-BCB5-6A982D6C9E50}", and that it may be hard to generalize manually restoring as its default value contains a user SID, which is unique for all I know. At least the default value contains "iCloudPhotos" so is identifiable.

yeah sometimes you just need to expand the key dir and then search for the name. same thing for OneDrive under Root > CLSID. If good to go, please mark as solved. thanks.

dacrone said:

yeah sometimes you just need to expand the key dir and then search for the name. same thing for OneDrive under Root > CLSID. If good to go, please mark as solved. thanks.

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Unfortunately, it doesn't survive a reboot, and get this - it comes back with a different GUID every time!

OTOH, this is interesting. Deleting it from the registry is instantly reflected in open Explorer windows. I guess the answer is a script to search for a key with default value containing "iCloudPhotos" to run at user logon, probably delayed a few seconds in Task Scheduler. Jesus, Apple.

Search under Root > CLSID for iCloud and change the value to any that have SystemIsPinned (or whatever similar dword is in there)

OK, I found System.IsPinnedToNamespaceTree at HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{145A608A-48E1-452D-8604-F1CCB8BF299E}, @="iCloud Photos". I changed it from 1 to 0 and rebooted. The icon reappeared anyway. However, the registry key was gone, and I did not delete it. I searched again from the top, and I found a duplicate at HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{10BFF74D-1C27-401C-B524-56CFB66610A1}. It couldn't have been there before, else my original search would have found it first, as it is lexicographically less than the other one. I changed its System.IsPinnedToNamespaceTree from 1 to 0 and rebooted, and finally, the icon did not appear. The registry key remained as well. Same for a second reboot. I copied the names of these registry keys directly from the .reg files I exported before making the changes, so they are the ones I found. The only differences in the .reg files is the key name. Weird.

Mea culpa, had Microsoft's OneDrive in mind instead of Apple's iCloud.