OneDrive comes installed with Windows 10 and is enabled by default if you sign on with a Microsoft account. If you don’t use OneDrive, however, and don’t want it running in the background, there are some hoops you can jump through to disable it or get rid of it everywhere in Windows 10.
Disabling OneDrive will prevent it from running as well as remove it from File Explorer, and you can easily re-enable it later if you want to. Unfortunately Windows 10 Home users don’t have access to the group policy editor, so they won’t have this option. But if you’re running Pro or another version of Windows 10, go to the Group Policy Editor (type in “gpedit.msc” in the search box) and go to Local Computer Policy > Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > OneDrive. Then enable the “Prevent the usage of OneDrive for file storage” setting.
To completely uninstall OneDrive:
- Open Command Prompt in Administrator mode: Right-click on the Windows icon in the taskbar and select Command Prompt (Admin).
- Type in
taskkill /f /im OneDrive.exeto terminate any OneDrive processes and hit Enter. - Then type in either
%SystemRoot%\System32\OneDriveSetup.exe /uninstallif you’re using 32-bit Windows 10 or%SystemRoot%\SysWOW64\OneDriveSetup.exe /uninstallif you’re using 64-bit Windows 10 and hit Enter.
You won’t see a confirmation dialog or progress bar when you do this, but if you try searching for OneDrive, the app will no longer be found. Your OneDrive folder and files, however, will still be available.
If you do want to remove the OneDrive related folders and their contents, head to TechJourney for additional commands to run as well as orphaned registry keys to clean up.
Should you change your mind and want to reinstall OneDrive, head to the “%SystemRoot%\SysWOW64\” folder in File Explorer and run the OneDriveSetup.exe program.