How to Remove OneDrive Photos App

Microsoft is quietly rolling out the OneDrive Photos app to Windows. Many organizations aren’t waiting for it to show up unexpectedly to users, or they simply never want it to appear at all. In this article, you will learn how to remove the OneDrive Photos app.

OneDrive Photos App

Microsoft is rolling out a standalone OneDrive Photos app (OneDrive.App.exe) into Windows. For a lot of managed environments, it’s unwanted overhead.

This means another background process, another sync target, another app showing up in the Start Menu that the IT support team has to explain to the users.

This is what the OneDrive Photos app looks like when you start it.

Let’s see how to remove the OneDrive Photos app in the next step.

Remove OneDrive Photos PowerShell script

The Remove-OneDrivePhotos.ps1 PowerShell script checks user and machine-wide shortcut locations and removes the OneDrive Photos Start Menu and Desktop shortcuts.

<#
    .SYNOPSIS
    Removes OneDrive Photos Start Menu and Desktop shortcuts.

    .DESCRIPTION
    - Deletes the OneDrive Photos shortcut from the common Start Menu location.
    - Deletes the OneDrive Photos shortcut from the Public Desktop location.
    - Deletes the OneDrive Photos shortcut from each user's Start Menu folder.
    - Does not uninstall OneDrive or remove any application binaries.
    - Exits 0 after completion.

    .LINK
    
How to Remove OneDrive Photos App


    .NOTES
    Written by: ALI TAJRAN
    Website:    www.alitajran.com
    LinkedIn:   linkedin.com/in/alitajran

    CHANGELOG
    V1.00, 08/03/2026 - Initial version
#>

$LogPath = Join-Path $env:ProgramData "OneDrivePhotosRemediation.log"
$ShortcutName = "OneDrive Photos.lnk"

# Check common machine-wide shortcut locations
$ShortcutPaths = @(
    Join-Path $env:ProgramData "Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\$ShortcutName"
    Join-Path $env:PUBLIC "Desktop\$ShortcutName"
)

# Check user profiles for user-specific Start Menu shortcuts
Get-ChildItem -Path "$env:SystemDrive\Users" -Directory -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue | ForEach-Object {
    $ShortcutPaths += Join-Path $_.FullName "AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\$ShortcutName"
}

Add-Content -Path $LogPath -Value "----- $(Get-Date -Format 'yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss') -----"
Add-Content -Path $LogPath -Value "Starting OneDrive Photos shortcut cleanup."

$RemovedCount = 0

foreach ($ShortcutPath in $ShortcutPaths) {
    if (Test-Path -LiteralPath $ShortcutPath) {
        try {
            Remove-Item -LiteralPath $ShortcutPath -Force

            Add-Content -Path $LogPath -Value "Removed: $ShortcutPath"
            Write-Output "Removed: $ShortcutPath"

            $RemovedCount++
        }
        catch {
            Add-Content -Path $LogPath -Value "Failed removing $ShortcutPath - $($_.Exception.Message)"
            Write-Output "Failed: $ShortcutPath"
        }
    }
}

Add-Content -Path $LogPath -Value "Cleanup completed. Shortcuts removed: $RemovedCount"
Add-Content -Path $LogPath -Value ""

Write-Output "OneDrive Photos shortcut remediation completed. Removed: $RemovedCount"

exit 0

That’s it!

Read more: Export OneDrive Usage Report in Microsoft 365 »

Conclusion

You learned how to remove the OneDrive Photos app. The OneDrive Photos app runs as a separate executable (OneDrive.App.exe) from the main OneDrive app (OneDrive.exe).

While you can remove the OneDrive Photos app executable, it’s not advisable. The recommended way is to remove the shortcut links. The good news is you can remove the shortcuts without affecting OneDrive file sync, which stays fully available to your users.

Did you enjoy this article? You may also like How to Download All User OneDrive Files. Don’t forget to follow us and share this article.