How can I delete folders from my computer that used to be part of a client's OneDrive for Business?

Question

When I try to delete folders from OneDrive synced from a former client's tenant where I have already performed the "Unlink this PC" option, even there it shows 0 bytes on disk, I get this message (0x800816A: The cloud file provider is not running):

I have OneDrive connections to other tenants and my own personal OneDrive connection that I don't want to disrupt.

I appreciate that this may be based on a security setting from the client to ensure no misuse of their files, but I no longer have a relationship with this particular client (so can't rejoin OneDrive) and just want to remove the folders from my personal computer without causing problems for my other, active OneDrive connections. How can I do this?

Answer 1

Hi @GraniteStateColin

Thanks for your sharing here. Maybe you have enabled the files on-demand feature before.

By the way, since the Microsoft Q&A community has a policy that "The question author cannot accept their own answer. They can only accept answers by others.", and according to the scenario introduced here: Answering your own questions on Microsoft Q&A, I would make a brief summary of this thread:

Issue Symptom:

The account was unlinked in OneDrive client, but can not delete folders from local OneDrive folder. The error message is: Error 0x800816A: The cloud file provider is not running.

Solution from GraniteStateColin:

1. From command prompt, navigate to the top of the OneDrive folder
2. Clean-up all the non-downloaded files via: Run: del . /s /q
3. Try to delete the folder. If this doesn't work, even though nothing appears to be using it, restart and try again

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Answer 2

It seems the files marked as not downloaded prevent deleting the folders that hold them, because they can't sync to OneDrive. Deleting the local thumbnails of those files appears to allow the containing folders to be deleted.

Here's one clumsy fix that worked for me. Maybe others can propose something better:

1. From command prompt, navigate to the top of the OneDrive folder
2. Clean-up all the non-downloaded files via: Run: del . /s /q
3. Try to delete the folder. If this doesn't work, even though nothing appears to be using it, restart and try again