IS ti safe to delete an empty OU in active directory?

Question

Good day

I will start to do a cleanup of our active directory structure. But before I do that, I have a question. I have a good number of OU's that are empty. Some are at the root of AD and I am wondering what are their use because they all are empty.

• Keys
• LostAnd Found
• Managed service accounts
• NTDS Quotas
• TPM devices

Is it possible that theses OU's still countains informations that I do not see?

Thank you

Answer 1

Hi,
For the usage of the default containers , you can refer to the following link:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/openspecs/windows_protocols/ms-adts/5a00c890-6be5-4575-93c4-8bf8be0ca8d8
When you install Active Directory, these default containers and Organizational Units (OUs) are automatically created.
Default containers are automatically created and cannot be deleted.

Best Regards,

Answer 2

Hi @Frédéric Giguère

To delete Remove Empty Groups / Empty OUs refer this url.

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Answer 3

Hi,

It can be safe if the script you will use doesn't delete the default OU.
You can cleanup empty OUs without touching the default OU.

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Answer 4

OK thank you very much for your help.

I just wanted to be sure that I would not delete something essentials by accident!