Can't remove orphaned notebooks

Question

I have OneNote notebooks under my account that I wish to remove.

The dialog box says that they do not exist or may have been deleted when I try to open them in OneNote Windows 10. However, the URL that it says the notebook is under does not exist and cannot be found in my OneDrive.

I know people say that the solution to this is to remove them via OneNote 2016. I have tried this and when I click 'Remove from List' they reappear after a few seconds. I have also tried clearing OneNote's cache from the AppData > Local folder and still no success.

Any help would be appreciated.

Answer 1

This ominous list is obviously stored in a hidden place on OneDrive.

Bernd

Answer 2

To keep content in sync and not easy to be lost, once the notebooks are synced successfully, they will be stored in cloud, that’s why you clicked 'Remove from List' and cleared the cache didn’t change anything, every data is from your OneDrive, the client will be consistent with the cloud in real time.

This explanation is wrong.

I'm sure we have the case of orphaned or ghost notebooks, which is an inconsistency.

Those are deleted notebooks which still appear in More Notebooks. A long known bug.

Usually one could kill them by using the mentioned Remove from List in OneNote 2016.

But since some weeks this is not working reliable anymore, as I have experienced myself.

Some genius developer made it worse.

Bernd

So is it not possible at the moment to remove these notebooks? (unless I deleted my OneDrive completely, which I probably won’t)

Answer 3

To keep content in sync and not easy to be lost, once the notebooks are synced successfully, they will be stored in cloud, that’s why you clicked 'Remove from List' and cleared the cache didn’t change anything, every data is from your OneDrive, the client will be consistent with the cloud in real time.

This explanation is wrong.

I'm sure we have the case of orphaned or ghost notebooks, which is an inconsistency.

Those are deleted notebooks which still appear in More Notebooks. A long known bug.

Usually one could kill them by using the mentioned Remove from List in OneNote 2016.

But since some weeks this is not working reliable anymore, as I have experienced myself.

Some genius developer made it worse.

Bernd

Answer 4

Thus it seems. I now have this problem too.

Bernd

Answer 5

Hi Chlo,

Thanks for posting in the community, according to your description, firstly, I’d like to explain to you the following information:

1.       Close a notebook in OneNote for Windows: when closing a notebook, it will disappear in OneNote client but still be stored in your account’s OneDrive, when you need it you can reopen it again.

2.       Delete a notebook in OneNote for Windows: permanently delete from your account’s OneDrive and you can no longer reopen it unless you restore it from OneDrive recycle bin.

Please refer to the above information to indicate that kind of “remove” are you talking about, since there is a big difference between the two, it will also lead to a great difference in the way to solve your problem.

Anyway, in your case,

·         If you want to open a notebook but the client said that it does not exist, you can go to your OneDrive online to check if it is, and you can open it online and then open it in app if it does exist in your OneDrive, or you can try to restore it form recycle bin in OneDrive.

·         If you want to close a notebook in OneNote client, just right-click it and select Close This Notebook, you can reopen it when you need it.

·         If you want to delete a notebook, please go to your OneDrive local synced folder or OneDrive Online and delete it.

To keep content in sync and not easy to be lost, once the notebooks are synced successfully, they will be stored in cloud, that’s why you clicked 'Remove from List' and cleared the cache didn’t change anything, every data is from your OneDrive, the client will be consistent with the cloud in real time.

Hope the above information can help you, and if you have any questions please feel free to come back to ask me and point out what your situation is.

Best Regards,

Arck