cannot delete Sharepoint / Teams "Misc" Documents subfolder

Question

Hi, in our dept's Sharepoint Documents library, I had created a Misc subfolder a couple of years ago. We no longer need it and want to delete it, but it has no Delete option (every other folder has Delete in-between Add shortcut to OneDrive and Automate options).

Our IT Manager said it's because we once had a Channel in our dept Teams called "Misc", which has since been deleted, although the Misc FOLDER wasn't manually linked to it.

In any event, I tried re-creating the Misc Channel, which didn't enable a Delete option in Sharepoint OR Teams... and what's interesting is that when I then went to delete the Channel again and got this warning:

And the link takes me directly to the Sharepoint Documents' Misc subfolder, even though I never added it to the channel (there doesn't seem to be a way to connect / link a specific Sharepoint Document Library's subfolder to a Teams channel anyway)... so it seems by way of using the id “Misc” for the Sharepoint folder, Teams automatically connected it to the Misc Channel.

And of course there is also no option to Rename the folder (in case renaming it to something other than Misc would solve the issue).

Can anyone advise me how to delete that folder?

Thanks!

Answer 1

Hi @David Penna ,

You could delete this folder with SharePoint PowerShell as a workaround.

PowerShell commands:

#Function to Delete all files and Sub-folders of a given Folder  
Function Empty-SPOFolder([Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.Folder]$Folder)  
{  
    Try {  
        #Get All Files from the Folder  
        $Ctx = $Folder.Context  
        $Files = $Folder.Files  
        $Ctx.Load($Files)  
        $Ctx.ExecuteQuery()  
    
        #Iterate through each File in the Root folder  
        Foreach($File in $Files)  
        {  
            #Delete the file  
            $Folder.Files.GetByUrl($File.ServerRelativeUrl).Recycle() | Out-Null  
            Write-host -f Green "Deleted File '$($File.Name)' from '$($File.ServerRelativeURL)'"  
        }  
        $Ctx.ExecuteQuery()  
    
        #Process all Sub Folders of the given folder  
        $SubFolders = $Folder.Folders  
        $Ctx.Load($SubFolders)  
        $Ctx.ExecuteQuery()  
           
        #delete all subfolders  
        Foreach($Folder in $SubFolders)  
        {  
            #Exclude "Forms" and Hidden folders  
            If( ($Folder.Name -ne "Forms") -and (-Not($Folder.Name.StartsWith("_"))))  
            {  
                #Call the function recursively to empty the folder  
                Empty-SPOFolder -Folder $Folder  
   
                #Delete the folder  
                $Ctx.Web.GetFolderById($Folder.UniqueId).Recycle() | Out-Null  
                $Ctx.ExecuteQuery()  
                Write-host  -f Green "Deleted Folder:"$Folder.ServerRelativeUrl  
            }  
        }  
    }  
    Catch {  
    write-host -f Red "Error:" $_.Exception.Message  
    }  
}  
   
#Variables  
$SiteURL = "https://your tenant.sharepoint.com/sites/your site name"  
$ServerRelativeUrl= "/sites/your site name/your library name/your folder name"  
   
Try {  
    #Get Credentials to connect  
    $Cred= Get-Credential  
   
    #Setup the context  
    $Ctx = New-Object Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.ClientContext($SiteURL)  
    $Ctx.Credentials = New-Object Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.SharePointOnlineCredentials($Cred.Username, $Cred.Password)  
     
    #Get the web from URL  
    $Web = $Ctx.web  
    $Ctx.Load($Web)  
    $Ctx.executeQuery()  
   
    #Get the Folder object by Server Relative URL  
    $Folder = $Web.GetFolderByServerRelativeUrl($ServerRelativeUrl)  
    $Ctx.Load($Folder)  
    $Ctx.ExecuteQuery()  
   
    #Call the function to empty Folder  
    Empty-SPOFolder $Folder  
   
    #Delete the given Folder itself  
    Write-host  -f Green "Deleting Folder:"$Folder.ServerRelativeUrl  
    $Folder.Recycle() | Out-Null  
    $Ctx.ExecuteQuery()  
}  
Catch {  
    write-host -f Red "Error:" $_.Exception.Message  
}  

Note: Remember to replace your tenant name, your site name, your library name and your folder name in line 47 and line 48

For Reference: SharePoint Online: Delete All Files and Sub-Folders from a Folder Recursively using PowerShell
Note: Microsoft is providing this information as a convenience to you. The sites are not controlled by Microsoft. Microsoft cannot make any representations regarding the quality, safety, or suitability of any software or information found there. Please make sure that you completely understand the risk before retrieving any suggestions from the above link.

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